Editorial Policy

At Open Sky News, we aim to maintain high journalistic standards to provide unique and quality articles and news to our readers. When writing for us, you agree to these terms and understand that if you don’t follow them, your article could be rejected by us. You will enter a contract with us that will demand your written agreement to this policy.

Corrections Policy

Open Sky News believes in transparency and honesty. Therefore, Open Sky News will correct mistakes promptly. Fullness and freshness of information represent two inescapable values in the online journalism world, and Open Sky News believes that accuracy is equally essential; we ensure expediency in making corrections when needed.

Open Sky News is dedicated to informing its readers when it has made a mistake (however big or small), conveying the error’s severity, and providing the correct information as soon as the mistake is brought to attention.

When an error is detected within an article, Open Sky News immediately works to find the correct information and clearly display the corrections wherever possible within the article. The corrections will include:

The correct information.
What was originally published that was incorrect.
The date (and time, if available) when the change took place.
The process to report errors from within articles is made easy to understand, by providing an email address and form to contact us at the beginning of each article.

Whenever errors cannot be amended within the body of an article’s content, corrections are displayed clearly in the last paragraph of the news content. Rather than remove completely the content containing a mistake, we provide clarification and admittance of our mistakes to preserve transparency.

Fact-Checking Policy

Open Sky News commits to verifying all statistics and technical information by cross-checking with source documents and/or clearly stating the source of the information. This sometimes involves seeking the consultation of an external expert or the primary source of the information and providing them with any necessary information from the content in question for verification.

Open Sky News prides itself on the validity of its content, and therefore does whatever it can to be sure that the information presented by its writers is accurate. As a well-known global publication, Blasting News understands the importance of approaching claims with skepticism, thinking critically, and upholding accuracy in whatever way possible.

Open Sky News encourages its Blasters to keep in mind the following considerations when producing articles:

Credit, acknowledge, and verify the source(s) of your information.
Consider whether you know enough about the information to qualify as a trustable source.
Think critically when addressing claims.
Never make assumptions.

We trust our Blasters’ integrity and the accuracy of the information provided in our publication. But in the case that a mistake is made, we recognize the importance of admitting to mistakes and diligently working to provide correct information whenever mistakes are made. Consequently, we encourage our readers, contributors, and their sources to provide us with feedback on any of our content.

Ethics Policy

Originality

We expect all articles to be 100% original. They should pass Copyscape and other plagiarism checks. The writer should only send ‘never-published-before’ content for approval by our editors. You must focus on writing content that provides value to our readers. Articles that have been plagiarized or spun from a pre-published article will be rejected, and these type of activities may affect your contributor or author account.

Claims and Data

All claims and data should be duly examined before including in the article. No false claims or biased data will be entertained by the clients. We ensure that whatever data is getting published on our website is already available in the public domain and has been verified by relevant sources. The writers must link the data/statistics/claims to a relevant website where it was published previously.

Always seek to provide empirical evidence about the claims. You can include pictures, graphs, and screenshots to prove your claims. If no authority websites, experts back up your claim, you should avoid using it in your article.

Value

All the articles you write should contain a value for our readers. Your article should have a definite objective which must be followed to provide value. We aim to provide articles that can present the latest news to our readers and help them understand the nuances of various businesses and technologies. All the articles should be completely unbiased and there should be no promotion/marketing of any currency, market or company whatsoever.

Promotions and Marketing

No article should contain any claims or information about a technology/business/person for marketing or promotional purposes. The title, subheadings and the content of your articles should always remain straight-forward and unbiased. You should not link any article that promotes a company/currency/person. We strongly discourage the use of promotional/marketing links in our articles.

News writing

Journalist can only submit news as a “proposal for publication”. As soon as the proposed news article is received, Open Sky News adopts several layers of controls to ensure the quality and accuracy of the news article. After these controls, if the news article abides to Open Sky News’ policies and standards, the news article is published.

A. What happens before publication?

Grammar check tool and Anti-plagiarism tool

Initially, the proposed article is checked by the editors making sure the following:

Grammar check tool prevents the use of certain keywords and expressions within the content, as well as grammatical and simple syntax errors.
The Anti-plagiarism tool which prevents the publishing of content copied from elsewhere on the Internet (including Open Sky News’ own website). Open Sky News accepts from journalist only original content not previously published in any other publication. The tool detects if an article has been copy-pasted from other sources, or if the article has been taken from another website. Open Sky News’ editorial team passes the article through anti-plagiarism tool to make it certain that the content that violates copyright or trademark rights to not to be published.

The proposed article is then evaluated by an editor, who can choose to either publish, correct, or reject the proposed article. When reviewing an article, editors must ensure that (among other factors):

The content adheres to the:

Fact Checking – We are committed to fact-checking every single article and to avoid publishing fake news or misleading content.
We investigate the source – The sources cited in the article are correct, and that the article’s information is accurate and true.
Content that is against and individual, group or organisation – The content does not violate any law, e.g. terrorism, pornography or other crimes.
Non-Promotional Content – The content is not promotional content nor advertising material.
Quality – The content is well written and well presented.
Neither click-bait nor sketchy headlines – The content’s headline and subheadline are powerful, catchy, and not clickbaiting by any means.

Editors do not impose their opinions on the content they verify!

An editor cannot reject an article straightaway. They either publish or send back for revision. If sent back, the editor must give the writer full and complete feedback as to why the article was sent back for revision. An article can be revised up to three times before a final decision must be made – to either publish or reject the article.

If in doubt, the editor will consult with the editor-in-chief to verify the newsworthiness or validity of an article that has been proposed. If there is any doubt as to the validity of the article, the editor-in-chief who will take the final decision on the content.

At all times, the editor is required to give full and complete feedback to the writer and the entire feedback chain is then made available to the editorial team so that they may intervene should a discussion arise as to why an article was or was not published.

B. What happens after publication?

The published article is continuously checked through standard procedures in which editors pecifically looking for clickbaiting and misleading headlines. Any clickbait or misleading article will be sent for immediate review to editor-in-chief.

Finally, the published article is continuously checked by its own readers. Readers can mark title and suggest corrections and provide Open Sky News with feedback through the site’s correction policy. Cooperation is key to ensure high-quality journalism and to improve journalism, fix errors, and enrich any content with different facts and points of view.

Reader

Be mindful of the fact that our readers are not the general public but people who are genuinely interested in the news. Your articles should always contain valuable information for readers who already understand the technology and business sphere. Our aim is to provide them with the latest information and news about different news. Therefore, understand our readers before writing an article for them.

Last Updated: 18/02/2023