Creating Great Charters
Best Practices for Newsrooms Applying to the Civil Registry
It’s a thrilling time at Civil. After more than a year of imagining how the Civil Registry might work, it’s been exciting to see the platform alive in the wild. We’re really pleased with the breadth of newsrooms that are applying to join the network.
As expected, the first days of the project are revealing areas that might need improvement, and have brought forth some brilliant ideas from our newsrooms about where to go from here. Please keep the feedback coming; it’s very helpful.
One area for improvement pops out to us immediately: Newsroom Profiles, and specifically, the Charter. The Newsroom Profile helps the Civil community discover and learn more about a newsroom and may be the first thing people see about an organization on Civil. We tried to keep the question prompts for the Charter broad so that newsrooms could provide the information they see fit. However, many newsrooms have asked for more guidance and specificity on what type of information to disclose.
In this note, we’re offering additional clarity on how to write a better Charter to truly reflect the work you do. Keep in mind that newsrooms can edit their charters anytime. The only exception is a newsroom under challenge.
Ownership Structure
Ownership structure is one way the Civil community can understand the business constraints associated with your news organization, so please be as specific as possible. “Private ownership” or “nonprofit” doesn’t say a lot. Is there a single shareholder with other investors? Is it owned by the employees? If it’s a non-profit, is there a board the oversees governance? This is important because it indicates how your editorial decision-making process is protected from interference from interests outside the newsroom.
Current or Intended Revenue Sources
As a community built on transparency and sustainability, it’s important for you to clearly articulate how your organization makes money or intends to, and address any areas that might need clarification.
Many news organizations are working hard toward achieving sustainability by incorporating a host of outside revenue streams such as events, merchandise, sponsorships, “content studio” work, consulting, etc. We suggest you articulate how you separate your editorial processes from these commercial activities to ensure that pressure from clients or financial partners do not influence the final editorial product.
For example, if your site contains sponsored content, consider adding some information about how that content is created and labeled so as to alleviate concerns that it may be misleadingly presented as editorial content. It also helps to show understanding of the debates over the last several years about this type of revenue and address them directly.
If consulting is one of your revenue streams, explain the kind of consulting you do and how it is handled in a way that does not represent any conflict. In other words, what are the ways that your organization maintains editorial boundaries and independence between sponsors/content clients, and the news that you cover.
Feel free to use the “additional info” field as a place to add more detail as needed.
Potential Conflicts of Interest
Use this space to make sure people reading your charter know that you take seriously the journalistic independence of your newsroom. Some journalists have other forms of outside income to supplement their incomes from their newsroom. Explain how you see that being separate and independent from your journalism work.
This is also the place to reveal any personal affiliations you may have that could intersect with your areas of coverage.
Finally, we encourage every newsroom to have a very robust “about us” section with clear editorial policies on your websites. Best practice suggests broad transparency — including names and profiles of key staff, information about governance including board member or owner names and profiles, a clear corrections policy and ways for members of the public to get in touch.
If you have any questions or suggestions about charters or “about us” disclosures, please bring them into Slack. We love talking about this stuff and hearing your views.
