As stated in our Code of Ethics, we are committed to truthfulness and accuracy in our reporting. However, it is inevitable that mistakes will sometimes occur. This policy is intended to clarify what readers can expect if they believe they have identified an error in Filter. It is based significantly on best media practices found elsewhere.
How to contact us if you identify a mistake.
Please email Editor [at] Filtermag.org, identifying the article in question and the factual inaccuracy you have found.
How we will respond.
We will promptly seek to verify whether a factual error has been made. We will then respond to your email to let you know the outcome. In most cases, this will happen well within 36 hours. However, there will be times, including weekends or holidays, when members of our small team are not immediately available. We appreciate your patience when this is the case.
How we handle corrections.
If a factual error is confirmed, we will immediately edit the article to remove the inaccuracy, replacing it with the best available information if applicable. We will also immediately add a dated correction note within the article, describing the error and the change that has been made. If there is a possibility that our error has caused hurt or offense to anyone, we will include an apology in the correction note. If we have shared erroneous information within our social media posts, we will also correct those posts. If our editors consider the entire substance of an article to be in question, we may temporarily remove it pending a review process.
What we don’t do.
We do not attribute blame for errors made in good faith to individual writers or editors; rather, we take collective responsibility. We don’t issue correction statements on social media unless one of our social media posts has itself been inaccurate. We don’t unpublish whole articles from our website because of one or more specific errors that can be addressed with edits and a correction note.
Updates and clarifications.
When an article needs updating in the absence of a major factual error—because a news story is developing rapidly and we were unaware of the latest events, for example—we may or may not add an update note. When a description that is factually correct is not as clear or detailed as it should be, and is therefore edited, we may or may not add a clarification note. These decisions will be at the discretion of our editors, and will depend on how substantive the required change was and the value a note could add.
Questions of opinion and taste.
Filter’s contributors comprise a broad coalition of people with a wide variety of opinions, perspectives and preferred ways of expressing themselves. Opinions expressed in Filter do not necessarily reflect the views of Filter itself. While we will always take action to correct factual errors, we do not guarantee to do the same when a reader disagrees with an opinion expressed in an article, or otherwise finds fault with an article in a subjective way. Readers are nonetheless welcome to email Editor [at] Filtermag.org with such concerns. We undertake to read and fully consider all such complaints, and to respond by email when appropriate. Any changes made following complaints of these kinds would depend on the discretion of the editors, a dialogue with the author and/or a potential review process.
[This policy was adopted by the board of The Influence Foundation on August 23, 2021.]