Philadelphia · Field interview
"The numbers don't add up to work for nobody."
Volume VI — Standards
How we report. What we won’t do.
A newsroom is the set of rules it follows when nobody’s watching. These are ours, in public.
Section 01
Why we publish this
The rules apply to everyone, including me.
The standard most independent media outlets apply is whatever the founder happens to feel that day. We’re going further. These rules apply to everyone publishing under the WTM masthead, including me.
Underneath these rules is a philosophical position worth stating directly: all knowledge is situated, and journalism is no exception. The “view from nowhere” claimed by mainstream outlets is itself a particular perspective pretending to be universal. We don’t pretend that. We declare where we’re standing — African leadership, diaspora collaboration, an intersectional coalition reporting from communities most often spoken about rather than spoken with — and we hold ourselves to a standard that’s more honest because it’s situated, not less.
If we ever fall short of any rule below, the correction goes here, dated, with what was wrong and what we did about it.
This page is a living document. If we change a rule, the change is logged at the bottom with the date and the reason.
The Values
What every rule serves
Naming the principles so any rule can be tested.
These are the principles every rule below comes from. Naming them so that any rule can be tested against them and sharpened or replaced when it stops serving them.
- Public service The work is for the broader community, not the people paying for it.
- Integrity Honesty, transparency, and ethical practice as the default, not the exception.
- Inclusion Every voice in our coverage gets to speak in their own words; the masthead reflects the network’s geography.
- Equity Fair representation, fair pay, and fair opportunity, calibrated to where contributors actually live and work.
- Responsibility Media is a real instrument of power; we wield it with awareness of what it can do.
- Innovation We use new tools (onchain publishing, AI-assisted research, knowledge graphs) where they serve the work, and we say so.
- Accountability We own our actions, decisions, mistakes, and outcomes — out loud, in public.
Media is for enlightenment, not manipulation. That’s the line. Every rule below traces back to it.
Section 02
Sourcing
Named sources are the default.
Named sources are the default
Every story sources its claims to identifiable people, documents, or records. If we can’t show our work, we don’t publish.
Anonymous sources
We grant anonymity sparingly, only when:
- The source has direct knowledge of what they’re describing
- Identifying them would expose them to credible harm — physical, professional, or legal
- The information cannot be obtained another way
- A second source corroborates the central claim
We never grant anonymity to attack a named individual without giving the named individual a real chance to respond first.
Multi-source rule
For any claim that materially affects a named person or organization, we verify with at least two independent sources before publishing. If we can’t, we either hold the story or publish what we can verify and clearly mark what we can’t.
On the record vs. off the record
Default is on the record. If a source asks for off-record or background framing, we negotiate the terms before the conversation continues. We don’t change agreed terms after the fact.
Documents and records
When the source is a document — court filing, financial record, leaked file, public dataset — we link to it or describe its provenance clearly enough that any reader could check our reading.
Section 03
Accuracy and verification
We fact-check before we publish.
We fact-check before we publish. Quotes are checked against recordings or source review. Numbers, dates, names, and titles are checked against authoritative records.
If we make a factual error, we correct it. The correction is described in Section 5.
We don’t paraphrase quotes inside quotation marks. If we summarize what someone said, it’s outside the quotes and clearly attributed as paraphrase.
Section 04
Conflicts of interest
Stricter than most outlets. We name our positions.
Personal disclosures
Anyone publishing under the WTM masthead discloses, in advance, any personal, financial, or relational interest in a story they’re working on. The editor decides whether the conflict is manageable, requires recusal, or requires disclosure inside the published piece.
Token and equity holdings
Because we cover web3, crypto, and onchain organizations, we apply a stricter standard than most outlets and we name our positions publicly.
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Currently disclosed holdings (founder, Maceo)
ETH, OP (Optimism), USDC. We update this list when positions change.
The operating rules:
- Anyone publishing on a project, token, protocol, or company discloses any holdings in that asset in the byline footer of the piece, before publication. The reader sees the disclosure, not just the editor.
- A writer recuses (the piece is reassigned) from any coverage that could plausibly move the price, unlock schedule, or governance outcome of an asset they hold meaningfully. Meaningful here means the holding is a material share of their personal portfolio, or a position large enough that even small coverage-driven movement matters to them.
- Anyone with an equity stake, advisor role, or paid relationship at a company recuses entirely from coverage of that company. No exceptions. No disclosure-only workaround.
- Stablecoin holdings (USDC, USDT, etc.) require disclosure only when the coverage is about that specific stablecoin or its issuer. They’re functionally cash for most other reporting purposes.
Recusal
When recusal is required, the piece is reassigned. We don’t paper over conflicts with disclosure language alone.
Section 05
Corrections
If we get it wrong, we say so.
Where corrections live
Each piece carries a corrections footer. When a correction is made:
- The original text remains visible, struck through.
- The corrected text is shown next to it.
- The correction note states what was wrong, what’s right, and the date.
For pieces published on Paragraph, the correction is appended as a new section, dated, and the post is re-signed onchain.
How to report a mistake
Email wethem2022@gmail.com with the URL of the piece and what’s wrong. We respond within 72 hours of receipt.
Material vs. minor
Material errors — anything that changes the meaning, accuses someone of something they didn’t do, or misattributes a quote — get a correction footer plus a note in the newsletter.
Minor errors — typos, formatting, dead links — get fixed quietly with a date stamp.
Section 06
AI-use disclosure
We use AI tools. We disclose where and how.
We use AI tools. We disclose where and how.
What we use AI for
- Transcription of recorded interviews. Always disclosed. The writer reviews the transcript before quotes are pulled.
- Translation. Disclosed. Bilingual review of all translated quotes before publication.
- Research assistance (search queries, summarization of long source documents, knowledge graph queries via bonfires.ai). Disclosed as “AI-assisted research” in pieces where this materially shaped the reporting.
- Editing assistance (line edits, rewriting suggestions). The published prose is the writer’s.
What we won’t do
- Publish AI-generated reportage as if a human wrote it
- Use AI to fabricate quotes, sources, or scenes
- Use AI to generate photographs or video presented as documentation of real events
- Train AI on protected source identities
How AI use is disclosed
Each piece carries a footer noting which AI tools were used and for what. If AI played no role beyond standard transcription, we say that too. “We didn’t use AI” is also a disclosure.
Section 07
Source protection
We protect sources who ask for protection.
We protect sources who ask for protection. Always.
- Source identities are not stored in cloud documents, shared spreadsheets, or platforms with no encryption.
- Communications with anonymous sources happen on Signal or comparable end-to-end-encrypted channels.
- We do not honor subpoenas for source identities. If served, we will fight in court.
- See our tip line page for instructions on contacting us securely.
Section 08
Plagiarism and attribution
We don’t run other people’s words as ours.
We don’t run other people’s words as ours. If we quote, we quote and credit. If we summarize, we attribute. If we use someone else’s reporting, we link to it and credit the outlet by name.
Image and video sourcing follows the same rule: if it isn’t ours, the credit is in the caption, with a link where one exists.
Section 09
Editorial independence
No partner gets a vote on what we cover.
No partner, sponsor, donor, advertiser, or token holder has any veto, advance review, or directional influence over our editorial decisions.
- Funders never see pieces before publication.
- Sponsorship, when it happens, is labeled as sponsorship. Never as editorial.
- Token holders of our patronage tokens have no editorial vote. The tokens fund the work; they don’t direct it.
If we ever cover a partner — including CTRL+X, bonfires.ai, or any future relationship listed on /methods — that coverage is held to the same conflict-of-interest standard as any other piece, and the partnership is disclosed in the byline area.
Section 10
Contributor relationships
Contributors are paid. Credited. Heard.
Pay
Contributors are paid. The default is a transparent rate published in our Join and The Ask pages — currently $20 weekly tips for quality work in season one, with $1,000+ bounties for the strongest contributors at the end of summer 2026.
We aim for parity. A contributor in Lagos and a contributor in Philadelphia doing the same work earns the same rate.
Credit
Every published piece carries the contributor’s byline. Pseudonyms are allowed when safety requires; the editor knows the identity behind the pseudonym.
Edit rights
Contributors review final edits before publication and can withdraw a piece if substantive changes weren’t agreed to.
Expenses
Reasonable reporting expenses are reimbursed. We don’t expect contributors to fund their own travel, equipment, or fixers.
Section 11
How we close cycles
Every season ends with a completion conversation.
Most newsrooms close cycles with metrics. We close them with people. The last working day of every season is reserved for a completion conversation — a recorded session where the team acknowledges what shipped, who made it possible, what we earned together, and what we want to carry into the next cycle.
Three things happen in that conversation:
- Acknowledgment. Every contributor who showed up across the season is named. Not as a metrics line. As a person who held a piece of the work.
- Recap. What we shipped. What we attempted that didn’t ship. What we learned from the gap.
- Rest. The season closes. Whatever comes next starts after a deliberate pause. December is rest. New cycles open in the new year.
This isn’t a culture thing tacked onto the journalism. It’s a methodology bet: creators who tend the foundation get to keep producing the fruit. Creators who only push output until they break, don’t. A completion conversation closes the foundation cycle so the next one has something to grow from.
Section 12
AI in editorial production
What we use AI for. And what we don't.
Generative AI is a tool. We use it carefully, narrowly, and in public. Here’s the actual policy — not a marketing line.
What we use AI for
- Transcription. We pull transcripts from YouTube Studio (auto-generated by Google) and from Otter / Descript for unrecorded interviews. Every published quote is then verified against the original audio by a human editor.
- SEO drafts. We use AI to draft tags, meta descriptions, and first-pass video descriptions per a strict template (the WTM SEO format). All AI output is reviewed and rewritten by a human editor before publish.
- Site search and Q&A. The chat assistant on this site is grounded only in published content and explicitly disclosed as AI. It will refuse to invent quotes or answer about anything not on the site.
- Internal research. We use AI as an early-stage research aid — like asking a smart intern to summarize a long transcript or surface a date. Every claim that ends up in published work is independently sourced.
What we never use AI for
- Writing or reporting. No AI writes a published WTM piece. Not a paragraph, not a sentence in a piece’s voice. Every piece on this site was written by a human contributor.
- Inventing quotes or sources. Quotes appear in our work only if they’re in the original transcript. AI never fabricates a quote. The transcript rule overrides anything AI suggests.
- Generating photos or video that are presented as documentary. Any AI-generated image is labeled as such. We do not pass off synthetic media as field footage.
- Replacing contributors. Pay-per-piece for human contributors stays. AI is a tool that lets eight people do the work of fifteen, not the work of zero people.
Why we publish this
2026 is the year of "wait, was that piece actually written by a person?" Trust starts with being explicit about the boundary. If you ever read something on a WTM channel and suspect it’s AI-generated, write us at wethem2022@gmail.com — we’ll show you the production trail.
Section 12
Diversity, access, representation
Diversity isn’t a section. It’s the whole point.
We’re building a global network. Diversity isn’t a section in our standards; it’s the whole point of the publication. But the operational rule is:
- Stories about communities are reported by, or in active partnership with, people from those communities wherever possible.
- We pay for fixers, translators, and local collaborators. We don’t extract.
- The masthead reflects the network’s geography. If you can find what city someone is reporting from, you can find a contributor on staff with proximity to that place.
Section 13
How these standards change
Versioned, dated, in public.
This page is versioned. The current version is dated at the bottom. Substantive changes are logged with date and reason. Minor edits (typos, formatting, link fixes) are made silently.
Reader feedback on these standards is welcome at wethem2022@gmail.com. We read it. We respond. When feedback identifies a real gap, the page changes.
A newsroom is the set of rules it follows when nobody’s watching.