DRAFT – review before launch

Editorial Policy & Standards

Our framework for source verification, political neutrality, attribution transparency, and journalistic ethics across Nigeria.

1. Source Selection & Whitelisting

News Stand NG does not aggregate from arbitrary or unverified blogs. To be included in our indexing pipeline, a news organization must meet strict foundational criteria:

Established Editorial Oversight: Must operate a recognized editorial board, masthead, or verified newsroom with bylined journalists.
Physical Presence & Transparency: Must maintain identifiable corporate registration and accessible newsroom contacts in Nigeria or global bureaus.
Record of Factual Journalism: Prior history free of systematic disinformation, hate speech, or defamatory fabrication.

2. Political Neutrality & Diversity of Voices

News Stand NG has no political affiliations, donor allegiances, or endorsements of any political candidate, party, or commercial conglomerate.

Our clustering algorithms and featured sections are engineered to display diverse perspectives on critical national issues—balancing coverage from northern, southern, eastern, and western editorial viewpoints so citizens receive the complete picture.

3. Separation of News and Opinion

We enforce strict taxonomical separation between factual reporting and commentary:

Articles categorized as Opinion, Editorial, or Column are explicitly marked in our system and excluded from hard news breaking feeds.
Sponsored articles or native promotional content must carry visible Sponsored badges and rel="sponsored noopener" link relations, per Google Webmaster Guidelines and advertising ethics.

Diversity & Geographic Inclusivity: Nigeria's strength lies in its 250+ ethnic groups and diverse cultural heritage. Our editorial ingestion monitors local news across all six geopolitical zones: North-Central, North-East, North-West, South-East, South-South, and South-West.

4. Handling Corrections & Errors

Because we aggregate live stories, when an originating publisher updates or retracts a story, our ingestion pipeline refreshes the headline, timestamp, and excerpt during recurring synchronization passes. Readers and publishers can also notify us directly of disputed information via our Corrections Desk.

5. Respect for Copyright & Intellectual Property

We believe robust investigative journalism requires economic sustainability. News Stand NG never paywalls aggregated snippets, never hides origin attribution, and never replaces publisher destination links with ad-interstitials.