Policies and standards at Briefly.co.za News

Table of Content

1. Diversity Policy
2. Editorial standards and ethics
3. Hate speech and bullying
4. Safety and inappropriate content
5. Copyright
6. Verification / Fact Checking Policy
7. Unnamed Sources Policy
8. Corrections policy
9. Actionable Feedback Policy

Diversity Policy

Briefly.co.za News is an unbiased, impartial news organisation that strives to act in the interest of the public and its readers.

Briefly.co.za News’ sole intention is to deliver high quality news that will either educate, inform and/or entertain our readers.

We work independently from any government or political-related organisation. Our content is not reliant on any outside funding, thus giving our writers creative freedom. Briefly.co.za News always strives for journalistic integrity.

We regularly review our editorial guidelines, ensuring we maintain our standards and integrity at all times.

By publishing our guidelines here, we afford our readers full transparency.

Briefly.co.za News Editorial standards and ethics

1. Briefly.co.za News is committed to deliver the highest editorial standards and we will always maintain and aspire to improve the standard our readers are used to seeing.
2. Our core objective is to operate in the public’s interest by reporting on stories that are of importance and/or interest to our audience.
3. We aim for the highest reporting standards to provide coverage that is fair and accurate at all times.
4. Our expertise provides professional judgment with clear analysis.
5. We remain unbiased and reflect the views and opinions of our readers to ensure our articles reflect a wide diversity of opinion where no significant strand of thought is either under-represented or completely omitted.
6. We are independent of outside interests and/or arrangements that could compromise our integrity.
7. We publish original content to inform, educate, and entertain the followers of our site.
8. Briefly.co.za News prevents people from being purposefully misled by the statements or actions of individuals or organisations.
9. Briefly.co.za News will avoid conflict of interest wherever and whenever possible. A disclaimer will be added where content is published where a conflict of interest might exist.

Hate speech and bullying

1. Briefly.co.za News content must not incite hatred and/or discriminate against people on the basis of their race, ethnic origin, religion, disability, age, nationality, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, etc.
2. Our content must not harass, intimidate or bully a person.

Safety and inappropriate content

1. Briefly.co.za News will not post articles that threaten or advocate for harm to oneself or others.
2. Briefly.co.za News will not post content that contains graphic sexual text, image, audio, videos, or games.
3. We will not publish articles that contain non-consensual sexual themes or promote a sexual act in exchange for compensation.
4. We will not publish any content containing child sexual abuse.
5. Briefly.co.za News commits to not posting any adult themes within family content.
6. We will not post any articles containing malicious or unwanted software.
7. Briefly.co.za News will not post any content that promotes illegal activity, or infringes on the legal rights of others. 

Copyright

Briefly.co.za News articles must not contain content that infringes on or violates the rights of any third party, including copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity or other personal or proprietary rights.

Briefly.co.za News respects the privacy and protection of personal information and must consider the balance between privacy and our right to broadcast information in the public interest to meet our ethical, regulatory, and legal obligation.

Briefly.co.za News must be able to justify any infringement of an individual’s privacy without their consent by demonstrating that the intrusion is outweighed by public interest.

A person’s privacy and respect for their human dignity must be balanced against public interest when reporting stories involving human suffering and distress.

When Briefly.co.za News uses videos, images and/or posts from social media and other websites accessible to the public, they may reach a wider audience than was intended.

Where the content features individuals who have personally posted material on social media, their expectation of privacy may be reduced. Especially when a person has shown a clear understanding of the impact that posting information on social media may have on their privacy, or where privacy controls have not been used.

Verification / Fact Checking Policy

Briefly.co.za News prides itself in ensuring the editorial team not only gets the facts right but weighs up relevant opinions as well as gets a clear understanding of the truth.

Wherever possible and whenever appropriate, Briefly.co.za News should:

1. Use first-hand sources when gathering information.
2. Check all the facts and statistics and identify potential red flags and limitations.
3. Validate the authenticity material discovered.
4. Corroborate the claims and allegations made.
5. Weigh, interpret, and contextualise any claims, including statistical claims made.

Briefly.co.za News must never knowingly reproduce, distribute, or encourage the spreading of false news through:

1. Disinformation: Information that is clearly false and created with the purpose of harming a person, social group, organisation, or country.
2. Misinformation: Information that is false but not intentionally created to harm anyone.
3. Mal-information: Information that, while based on reality, is used to purposefully inflict harm on a person, social group, organisation, or country.

Briefly.co.za News must never knowingly attempt to mislead the reader through the use of phrasing that is ambiguous or open to interpretation.
We need to differentiate between fact and rumor, taking care to attribute all material to their respective sources to enable unbiased scrutiny at all levels.

Unnamed Sources Policy

• Where possible, Briefly.co.za News will always include the name of sources for the information we publish.
• Briefly.co.za News will provide attribution through names, links, and other means to inform the reader about the source of information used in an article.
• While Briefly.co.za News prefers not to use confidential sources, we may still use them where the information is deemed credible, important to the readers and where it may negatively impact the livelihood of the source.
• Editors will protect the identity of confidential sources.
• Editors will also adhere to the law related to the legal rights of the editor (reporter) and the confidential source.
• Where exclusive news has been aggregated, a link to the primary source of information will be placed in the article.

Corrections policy

Where an error occurs on Briefly.co.za News, the editorial team will correct it as quickly as possible.

Depending on the severity of the error, the correction may be a simple edit to the story or may include an editor’s note explaining the correction.

If the subject matter of the article is found to be erroneous, Briefly.co.za News may unpublish the article.

Actionable Feedback Policy

Briefly.co.za News is willing to acknowledge mistakes when they are made and we strive to learn from those.

If you have a suggestion, criticism, complaint or compliment, you can contact Briefly.co.za News at contact@briefly.co.za and we will get back to you as soon as possible.