Information about WIP’s Journalist Pool
At WIP, we’re committed to treating the journalistic community fairly and ethically. Provided the policy below is followed, we allow any interested journalist to opt-in to our journalist pool, which receives embargoed website monitoring report releases.
WIP’s Journalist Pool Policy
- WIP welcomes any journalist, meeting ethical journalism standards, to join our journalist pool, provided that they commit to adhering to this policy.
- Journalists wishing to leave WIP’s journalist pool can notify the WIP team (webintegrity@sunlightfoundation.com) anytime and they will be removed from the pool.
- WIP reports will be sent to the journalist pool under an embargo period (typically 24 or 48 hours) that will be specified in the report release email. The embargo period must elapse before any publication based on the report is released. As noted below, there will also be releases that will not include an embargo period, which will be stated clearly.
- Our expectation is that, in reporting on our findings, journalists will discuss some of the contents of the embargoed reports with government officials or subject-matter experts. While the report is under embargo, journalists may not share the report with these officials or experts. In cases when the journalist believes that sharing the report would be beneficial and produce more impactful reporting, the journalist should contact the WIP team for permission to share the report.
- Any news article released covering a WIP report should link the corresponding report in the article and cite WIP. Acceptable citations are: “Sunlight’s Web Integrity Project” or “Sunlight Foundation’s Web Integrity Project”, with the text linking to the URL: https://sunlightfoundation.com/web-integrity-project/.
- Journalists are expected to notify the WIP team if they have written an article based on a WIP report or WIP’s work.
- Violation of the above embargo terms may result in removal from the journalist pool.
Additional Journalist Pool Information
- If there are questions, general suggestions, or suggested corrections pertaining to the report, please get in touch with the WIP team (webintegrity@sunlightfoundation.com).
- In some cases, the WIP team may choose to work exclusively with a journalist when it believes the collaboration will yield more impactful reporting. In those cases, the report will be released to the journalist pool without embargo at the same time as the corresponding news article is published. Journalists are welcome to get in touch with the WIP team to suggest collaborations.
- News articles written about WIP’s reports will be listed on WIP’s website.
