Editorial standards
What we will make fun of, what we will not, and how every story is checked.
SnarkWire is satire, and satire is allowed to be unfair. These are the lines we hold anyway, and the controls that hold them.
Who we write about
Public figures, institutions, companies and the news itself. People who chose public life can be named and mocked for what they did in it.
What we will not do
- Write about private individuals, or make anyone a target who did not choose to be in the news.
- Invent a quote a reasonable reader could take as something a real person actually said.
- State that a real person committed a crime they have not been convicted of.
- Demean anyone for a protected characteristic. Punching at power is the job; punching down is not.
Being tasteless is not, on its own, grounds for pulling a story. Being mistakable for real reporting is.
Politics
Nobody in charge is safe, whichever side they are on. On American politics in particular we deliberately alternate who takes the hit, and we track the balance over recent stories rather than trusting ourselves to feel it.
Review
Every draft is checked against the rules above before it reaches the editors’ queue, and one that fails is discarded rather than patched. The editors review the queue and can approve, reject or hold any draft. A draft that has not been acted on within an hour publishes on schedule. We record, for every story, whether it was approved by an editor or published on schedule.
After publication the editors can correct, suspend or permanently remove any story, and can stop all new publication with a single switch.
Sources
Every news story links the real reporting it was built from, under “The real story”. Those links lead to outlets that were doing journalism.
Corrections and removal
If a story crosses one of these lines, or names someone it should not, tell us through the contact form. We read every message, and taking a story down is one action away.