Purpose
This policy is how US Local Now reports, edits, and presents the news. It applies to every article, headline, image, and update on uslocalnow.com.
Accuracy
We publish only what we can support. Names, titles, dates, scores, vote totals, and dollar figures are checked against a primary source or against more than one independent account. We do not invent quotes. We do not round a claim into a stronger claim than the source allows.
When officials or companies disagree, we report what each side said, with attribution, rather than picking a winner in the headline.
Sourcing and attribution
Readers should be able to see where a fact came from. We name agencies, officials, documents, and other newsrooms we rely on, and we link to public source material when it exists.
Anonymous sources are a last resort, not a habit. We do not launder a rumor by writing “sources say” with no substance behind it. If a story is still a claim, we say so.
Headlines, previews, and Discover cards
The headline, excerpt, and featured image must match the article. We do not use fake urgency, all-caps shouting, or “you won’t believe” framing. We do not withhold the point of the story in the headline to force a click.
If Google Discover or social previews show a title or image, that preview must be an honest summary of the page.
Independence
News articles are not for sale. Advertisements, affiliate links, or sponsored modules, if we add them later, will be labeled. We do not let advertisers review or kill news stories.
Staff should not report on a business, campaign, or team in which they have a significant personal financial interest without a visible disclosure, or they should not report that story at all.
Fairness and politics
We cover U.S. politics as news, not as a campaign. Party affiliation is not a substitute for facts. Loaded language stays out of the lede. Endorsements, if any, would be labeled as opinion and kept off the news report.
Images and media
Featured images should be original or properly licensed photographs, relevant to the story, at least 1,200 pixels wide, with a 16:9 landscape crop. We do not set the site logo as the article image. We do not publish AI-generated faces or fake photographs of real people. We do not crop an image in a way that changes its meaning.
Captions say what the picture shows and, when we know it, who made it.
Tools, including AI
Staff may use software to gather sources, outline, or draft. Every published story still has to meet this policy: real sources, no invented facts, headline matches the text. AI output is not a source.
Updates and takedowns
Breaking stories get updated as facts change. A material change after publication gets a dated editor’s note. We do not silently replace a wrong headline or a wrong death toll and pretend the first version never ran.
We remove or correct illegal or clearly defamatory material. We do not unpublish an accurate story because it is inconvenient.
See Corrections.
Questions about this policy
Email contact@uslocalnow.com.