Editorial Policy

The Kingfish Project — kingfish.la · Effective date: July 17, 2026

How to read this policy

Plain language: Every section starts with a short summary in everyday English. The summaries help you understand; the detailed text underneath is the official version.

Each section begins with a plain-language summary, written following the Federal Plain Language Guidelines and ISO 24495-1. Summaries aid understanding; if a summary is ever inconsistent with the full text beneath it, the full text controls.

The short version

Plain language: We do accountability journalism about government in central Louisiana, built on public records. We publish the documents behind our reporting so you can check our work. We name our sources. We give the people we cover a real chance to respond. When we get something wrong, we say so publicly. And when we publish opinion, it’s labeled so you never have to guess.

Our mission and what we cover

Plain language: We cover how government actually works in central Louisiana — the meetings, the money, the records — because someone has to.

The Kingfish Project is a nonprofit investigative newsroom covering government accountability in central Louisiana: public bodies, public money, public records, and the people who control them. We exist to give residents the information they need to hold their government accountable. Our coverage decisions are driven by public importance, not by traffic, access, or the preferences of anyone who funds us.

Independence

Plain language: Nobody outside the newsroom — not donors, not board members, not anybody’s employer — decides what we cover or what we say.

Editorial decisions are made by the newsroom alone. Donors, sponsors, board members, and business interests do not review, approve, or influence coverage before publication, and funding is never accepted with strings attached to editorial outcomes. Our funding sources and independence safeguards are detailed in our Funding & Independence Policy.

Accuracy and verification

Plain language: Our reporting is built on documents. We verify claims against primary records before publishing, we publish those records alongside the story so you can check our work, and every investigation goes through a documented pre-publication review.

Accuracy is the foundation of everything else in this policy. Our practices:

• Documents first. Factual claims are verified against primary sources — records, filings, data, video, and testimony — before publication. We prefer the record itself over anyone’s characterization of it.

• Show the receipts. Wherever legally and ethically possible, we publish the underlying documents, data, and meeting video alongside our reporting, so readers can verify our work independently.

• Pre-publication review. Every investigative story completes a documented review checklist before publication, covering verification of each material claim, sourcing, right of reply, fairness, and legal risk. We retain those records.

• Data integrity. When our reporting relies on our own data analysis, we describe our methodology and publish the data where possible.

When we fall short, our Corrections Policy governs how we fix it — publicly and promptly.

Sourcing: on the record

Plain language: We name our sources — effectively always. Confidential tips are welcome and fiercely protected, but they point us to records; they aren’t a substitute for them. If a claim can only stand on an unnamed voice, we keep reporting until it stands on documents and named sources — or we don’t publish it.

Our default and our overwhelming practice is on-the-record sourcing: real names, real titles, accountable statements.

We effectively never publish anonymous sources. Reporting built on public records rarely needs them, and unnamed voices ask readers for trust our documents-first model is designed to make unnecessary. If a claim can be supported only by a source we cannot name, we treat that as a signal to keep reporting — to find the record, the data, or the on-record account — not to publish anyway.

Confidential tips are different from anonymous sources. We operate protected channels — an encrypted tip form, Signal, and others described in our Privacy Policy — and we protect the people who use them without compromise. Tips guide our reporting toward verifiable records; tipsters are not quoted, named or unnamed, unless they choose to go on the record.

The narrow exception. In an extraordinary case — information of overwhelming public importance that cannot be obtained any other way, from a source who would face genuine harm if named — the editor may approve anonymity. If that ever happens, the story will say so, explain why, and describe how we verified the information independently.

Once we grant a confidentiality commitment, we honor it. Fully.

Fairness and the right of reply

Plain language: If your conduct is central to a story, you’ll hear from us before it publishes — with the substance of what we’re reporting and real time to respond. What we won’t tell you is the publication date.

Anyone whose conduct is a central subject of our reporting receives, before publication:

• the substance of what we intend to report about them, in enough detail to permit a meaningful response;
• a genuine opportunity to respond, with time scaled to the complexity and seriousness of the reporting; and
• fair reflection of their substantive response in the story.

We do not disclose planned publication dates or share drafts. If a subject declines to comment or does not respond, we say so plainly, without insinuation. We do not treat “no comment” as an admission of anything.

How we gather news

Plain language: We tell people we’re journalists. We don’t lie to get information, we don’t pay for it, and we’re careful with private people, minors, and anyone in crisis.

• We identify ourselves. Our journalists identify themselves as journalists working for The Kingfish Project. We do not use deception or misrepresentation in newsgathering.
• Recordings. We record lawfully and consistently with our identification practice, and we favor the official record — public meetings, published video, government documents — wherever it exists.
• We do not pay for information. Not sources, not tips, not documents.
• Care for the vulnerable. Public officials and public business get aggressive scrutiny. Private individuals drawn into the news, minors, and people in crisis get restraint proportional to their role and their power.
• Lawful records. We obtain records through public records law and other lawful means, and we litigate access when we must.

News and opinion

Plain language: Opinion is clearly labeled, every time, everywhere it appears. The facts inside an opinion piece are held to the same standard as the facts in a news story.

We publish opinion and commentary in a clearly labeled opinion section. Opinion is identified as opinion on the page, in feeds, and in newsletters — you should never have to guess which you’re reading. We are a small newsroom and the same people may produce both; the label, applied without exception, is the boundary. Factual claims in opinion pieces are held to the same verification standard as news, and opinion never substitutes for reporting.

Conflicts of interest

Plain language: Our founder has a day job at CivicActions, a company that serves some state and federal government clients — none in Louisiana. That’s disclosed here and on our transparency page, and he recuses from any story touching a CivicActions client. Nobody covers anything they have a financial stake in, and we don’t take gifts from the people we cover.

Trust requires knowing who we answer to, so we disclose plainly:

• Outside employment. Our founder is employed by CivicActions, a digital services company that builds open-source technology for government agencies. Its current clients are state and federal agencies; none are Louisiana state or local governments. He recuses himself from any story involving a current or prospective CivicActions client, and this affiliation is noted in any story where it is relevant. If CivicActions’ client list changes in a way that affects our coverage area, we will update this disclosure.
• Financial interests. No one reports on entities in which they hold a financial interest.
• Gifts. We accept nothing of more than nominal value from the people, entities, or agencies we cover.
• Coverage subjects are not clients. The Kingfish Project does not take money from entities it covers.

Broader ethics rules for staff, contributors, and board members are set out in our Ethics & Conflict of Interest Policy.

Political activity

Plain language: Our people are citizens too. They can participate in political life — but any partisan donation, campaign role, or political affiliation gets publicly disclosed, and nobody covers a race or issue they’re personally involved in.

Staff and contributors may participate in civic and political life. Any partisan political donation, campaign involvement, or material political affiliation by anyone with editorial responsibility is publicly disclosed on our transparency page. Where someone’s political activity directly intersects a story — a race they donated in, a campaign they assisted, a measure they publicly championed — they recuse from that coverage. We choose disclosure over pretense: readers deserve to know where we stand and to see that it hasn’t bent the work.

Use of AI

Plain language: We use AI tools for grunt work — transcribing meetings, processing records. Humans verify everything before it’s published, and we disclose how AI touches our journalism.

We use automated and AI tools to make public records usable — transcribing meeting video, processing documents, structuring data. Every fact that reaches publication is verified by a human against the primary source, and no AI-generated text is published as journalism without clear disclosure. The details live in our AI Use Policy.

Bylines, plagiarism, and fabrication

Plain language: Bylines tell you who did the work. Plagiarism and fabrication end careers here — full stop.

Bylines identify who reported and wrote each story, and significant contributions are credited. Plagiarism and fabrication are the two unforgivable acts in journalism: either one results in immediate removal from The Kingfish Project and public disclosure of what happened.

Questions and accountability

Plain language: Think we’ve violated our own standards? Tell us — and if you’re right, we’ll say so publicly.

If you believe our work has fallen short of this policy, contact [email protected]. We take these complaints seriously, and where we’ve violated our own standards, we will say so publicly.

Contact

[email protected] The Kingfish Project, 1924 Albert St, Alexandria, LA 71301