Standards

Ethics

The Despoiler is built on one rule. Nobody with money gets a say in what it prints. These are the rest of the rules, and how they work day to day.

Who we answer to

The people of the Dayton area. Not sponsors. Not sources. Not officials. Not anyone we cover.

Free to read. No paywall. The news shouldn't belong only to people who can pay for it.
One owner. The Despoiler is published by thedespoiler LLC, an Ohio company owned outright by its editor. No investors. No board. No shareholders.
Paid for by readers and local sponsors. Every sponsor is listed on the About page. Sponsors buy clearly marked space. They don't buy stories, and they don't see stories before you do.
No money from billionaires, private equity, venture capital, hedge funds or anyone we cover.
Nothing for sale in the news. We don't pay sources. We don't take gifts or payment for coverage. If a company lends us something to review, the story says so.
The book. Sales of the editor's book support The Despoiler, and it's labeled that way wherever it shows up.

Show the work. We link or name the documents, data and outlets behind every story.
Check it first. Tips get checked against records and other sources before anything runs. Our own reporting gets a line-by-line source check before it's published.
Ask first. People and companies we report on get a chance to answer before we publish. If they don't answer, the story says so.
Fix it in the open. Mistakes get corrected with a dated note, never quietly. Every one is logged on the Corrections page.

They stay separate. News stories and trackers carry no editorializing.
Opinion is labeled everywhere it appears. The word Opinion sits above the headline on the piece itself, on the front page, on section pages, in the feed and in the link you share.
If it argues for something, it's opinion. It doesn't run as news.
No label, no publishing. A piece that isn't labeled doesn't go up.
Politics are reported from what people say and do on the record.
Dates and bylines on every story, and an as-of date on every tracker.

Named when we can. When someone needs to stay unnamed, we tell you why, and we back up what they say with records.
Protected when we promise it. We don't give up a confidential source.
Safe ways in. The tips page explains how to reach us privately.

No leaked or hacked personal data.
Minors stay out of the news.
Photos and video. We remove location data before publishing and blur bystanders when needed.
When we cover a death, the people who lost someone come first.

If the editor has a personal or financial stake in a story, the story says so, or someone else writes it.

What the tools do. They pull public records and sort them, read through the pages, check the math and write first drafts from the records. Mainly Claude, made by Anthropic.
What they don't do. They do not decide what is true. They do not decide what runs. They do not talk to sources.
Who answers for it. The editor rewrites, cuts and checks, reads all of it before it runs, and puts his name on it.
Who pays. We pay for these tools like any other customer. No AI company has a say in what we print.
Audio. Narration on our stories and videos is a synthetic voice.

The editor's full statement is under How we report.

If we break one of these, tell us.

Email: thedespoilerdayton@proton.me
Signal: message us on Signal