Fact-Checking Policy

We say it elsewhere but we'll say it again here: News is different from Opinion & Comment. For information listed under "News" headlines, we take our commitment to providing you with the facts, as we know them, with the seriousness and sincerity you deserve as an informed citizen.

That said, it's impossible for anyone to be perfect, especially in the fast-paced world in which we live today, with the constantly changing technological landscape and the speed with which information now moves, that has never been more apparent. As we do our best to inform readers, we'll no doubt have information that needs to be continually corrected as we learn more. We do not do this to deceive, we do this to inform our readers not only about the information we're reporting but how we have gone about acquiring that information and how that information has changed along the way. Wherever we can, we'll make our edits and updates as noticeable as possible.

We also agree that many modern news agencies and publications do not make the difference between News and Opinion clear enough, nor do they do a good job explaining the context around information reported as News.

The individual and collective responsibility for fact-checking at the Chicago Journal begins and ends with its writers, reporters, producers, photographers, and editors. With News reporting, the Chicago Journal expects its writers, reporters, producers, photographers, and editors to abide by the newsgathering guidelines established by the Society of Professional Journalists.

You can read more at the Chicago Journal's Ethics page, but the principles established by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics are the foundation of our newsgathering enterprise and we encourage you to learn more.

The Chicago Journal will do our best to provide proper attribution, with verifiable, independent sources, whenever possible. And we will do our best to provide clearly identified context of any source's relationship to any given report.

We'll always do our best to separate News from Opinion & Comment and make that distinction clear, but we'll go further. If you feel we have not done a good job separating News from Opinion on a particular story, we invite you to reach out to our editorial team with any issues you have regarding that separation, and you have our word that we'll get back to you as soon as we're able to research the issue and see if there are additional edits or ways we can address your concerns.

Our editorial team can be reached at the following address: editor@chicagojournal.com.