Editorial Independence Charter

This charter is the group’s minimum. It binds Synoptiva Media Group and every publication that carries the group’s name. A publication may adopt stricter rules. It may not go below these.

The charter names roles. It does not name a board, a chief executive, or an editor. Those names are not listed on this site. It is not a regulator filing and not a legal opinion.

Roles

• Ownership holds the publisher. An ownership interest does not approve, assign, or block a story.
• Group management runs the publisher’s operations. It does not clear copy.
• Commercial operations may sell advertising or other services only under the commercial policy. They do not sit in the editing chain.
• The newsroom of a publication selects, reports, edits, and publishes its journalism.
• The editor-in-chief, or the senior editor a publication designates, is responsible for that publication’s editorial decisions.

When one person holds more than one role

The same person may hold an ownership role and an editorial role. That overlap is not, by itself, a breach of this charter. It does not merge the duties.

Decisions about stories stay editorial. Decisions about budgets, ownership, and commercial deals stay outside the editing of news. An ownership interest, an advertiser, or a sponsor does not approve copy or block a story because the same person can act in both capacities.

The publication identifies the role responsible for editorial decisions. This charter does not name the person in that role. No office-holder is named on this site.

Where a publication has not yet published its own governance, this charter is the minimum those roles still have to meet.

Ownership and management

Ownership and group management do not assign stories, do not kill stories, and do not require a point of view. They may set budgets and the existence of a publication. They may not use that power to determine a conclusion.

An owner who dislikes a story has the same route as any other reader: the corrections and complaints procedure. Disagreement is not an instruction.

Commercial separation

An advertiser does not approve editorial material. A sponsor does not block publication. A commercial conversation is not an editorial conversation.

Staff who sell advertising or sponsorships do not edit the journalism they sit beside. They do not see a story before publication in order to reassure a client.

Sponsored material

Material that is paid for, or produced with a commercial partner, is labeled in plain language before the reader starts it. “Sponsored” or “Paid partnership” are acceptable labels. A euphemism is not.

Sponsored material is not mixed into unlabeled news. It does not borrow the typography of a news story in order to look unlabeled.

Material conflicts

When ownership, the group, or the publication has a material interest in a subject being covered, that interest is disclosed on the piece or in a standing disclosure the piece links to.

This charter does not list current interests. No specific interest has been confirmed for publication. That silence is not a claim that no interest exists.

Newsroom decisions

Decisions about what to cover, how to frame it, whom to quote, and whether to publish belong to the publication’s editors, under this charter and under that publication’s own rules.

Synoptiva’s website is not a newsroom. It does not revise Perspicora stories, and it does not rank them.

What this charter does not claim

It does not describe a named board or a completed corporate structure. It does not claim that ownership and the editor-in-chief are different people. It claims that the duties stay distinct. It does not certify the group. It does not replace a publication’s own corrections desk. Readers who want the day-to-day standard should also read the editorial standards.