Policies

Statement of Purpose

International Dateline is a publication of the student body and therefore has a responsibility to reflect student, school and community affairs. It will strive to inform, entertain and inspire its readers in a broad, objective and accurate manner.

Dateline also provides an open forum for the opinions of the student body, Dateline staff, the faculty, the school administration and people in the community. The purpose of the forum is to encourage the exchange of ideas and opinions on issues of importance and significance to the readers.

Anonymous sources policy

This statement has been developed with credit to Shalhevet High School’s newspaper “The Boiling Point.”

Anonymous sources are only used as a last resort, as without one’s name attached to a quote, a person may share views that are driven by a personal agenda or are not necessarily truthful.

Sometimes, however, the only way people will be willing to share information is if they can speak off the record. Otherwise, they may be held back by a fear of challenging authority figures or a commonly held opinion.

Thus, Dateline uses anonymous sources only when all four of these conditions are met:

1. The quote is critical to the story and the story is critical to the newspaper.
2. Information provided by an anonymous source cannot be attained in any other way.
3. Any facts presented by the interviewee have been verified by at least three other people.
4. Faculty advisor, Alexandra Wilding, knows the identities of the anonymous source(s).

Editorial Policy

Dateline Staff Editorials reflect the opinion of over 50% of the newspaper’s editorial board. They do not reflect the opinion of the entire staff. Editorials are often written by the Opinion editor.