The Midwest Newsroom: Ethics and Practices

The Midwest Newsroom's mission

The Midwest Newsroom is a partnership between NPR and member stations to provide investigative journalism and in-depth reporting with a focus on Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska.

We seek to hold those in power accountable for their action and inaction; reveal systemic flaws and abuse; explore and highlight solutions, and provide context and insight for radio and digital audiences through diverse voices and perspectives.

You can find our work here.

Based at KCUR 89.3 in Kansas City, we were founded in 2021 to bring more journalism to our region through the lens and expertise of people who live and work in the four states we cover.

Our partners are:

• Iowa Public Radio
• KCUR 89.3 (a University of Missouri-Kansas City licensee)
• Nebraska Public Media (a University of Nebraska-Lincoln licensee)
• St. Louis Public Radio (a University of Missouri-St. Louis licensee)
• NPR 

We also work with Harvest Public Media, a collaboration focused on food and agriculture, and Kansas News Service.

As a collaboration among non-project, local news organizations, we are committed to fact-based, in-depth and nonpartisan journalism.

Our areas of expertise include:

• climate adaption
• education
• housing
• public health
• policing

Throughlines in our work include accountability, solutions and exposing inequity.

Our journalism is free to read and listen to without a paywall or subscription. We share it with other news organizations for republication at no cost.

We have a core staff of five journalists, and work closely with journalists in our partner organization newsrooms to deeply report on issues affecting the lives of people in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. We occasionally hire freelance reporters, photographers and illustrators.

Who we are

• Holly Edgell, Managing Editor hollyedgell@kcur.org
• Nicole Grundmeier, Senior Content Editor ngrundmeier@iowapublicradio.org
• Kris Husted, Investigative Editor krishusted@kcur.org
• Kavahn Mansouri, Investigative Reporter kmansouri@kcur.org
• Daniel Wheaton, Data Journalist dwheaton@nebraskapublicmedia.org

Connect with us

We are available via our individual emails and via U.S. mail, Signal (for secure communication), and our Midwest Newsroom email address.

Find all the contact information here.

The Midwest Newsroom is active on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and we invite you to engage with us there.

Why you can trust us

The Midwest Newsroom is part of The Trust Project, which has a mission to amplify journalism’s commitment to transparency, accuracy, inclusion and fairness so that the public can make informed news choices. More information here.

Ownership structure, funding and grants

The Midwest Newsroom is a public radio collaboration based at KCUR 89.3. KCUR’s Federal Communications Commission FM Broadcast Station License is held by the Curators of the University of Missouri. The Board of Curators is KCUR’s governing body. KCUR has a Community Advisory Board.

The Midwest Newsroom is editorially independent and covers state institutions with the same rigor and fairness as any other entities. KCUR and The Midwest Newsroom are under no editorial obligations to the Curators of the University of Missouri or any other license holders.

The collaboration was founded in is funding by direct contributions from the five Midwest Newsroom partners and a grant from The Schmidt Family Foundation.

The Midwest Newsroom is under no editorial obligations to the owners, funders or partners in the collaboration.

Artificial intelligence (AI)

The Midwest Newsroom does not use AI to create or inform reporting. We may explore how we might use AI in the future, and will provide updates if we choose to use this technology.

Diverse voices

The Midwest Newsroom was founded with the intent of using the truth-telling power of journalism to contribute to a more vibrant, informed and whole regional discourse. We strive to include diverse voices and experiences, especially from outside dominant cultural perspectives.

Diverse staffing

The Midwest Newsroom has a small core staff of five. Nevertheless, it is a team that reflects the diversity of our region. Any recruiting we undertake aims to enhance our diversity of background, lived experience and perspectives. Working closely with our partners also gives us the opportunity to undertake projects that reflect this philosophy.

As several of the state university license-holders in our partnership have backed off of — or are considering backing off of — explicit diversity language in job descriptions and related human resources materials, we choose to follow the values practiced by our partner Iowa Public Radio (not a university licensee):

Values

• Integrity: We maintain the highest standards of journalism, providing trustworthy and relevant content with meaningful context.
• Curiosity: We serve an inquisitive audience by asking questions, seeking knowledge, and exploring new ideas.
• Belonging: We strive to reflect cultural complexity by offering a supportive, equitable space for individuals and communities to tell the stories unique to their lived experiences.
• Respect: We create a culture of respect for our audience, sources, and staff.
• Innovation: We support creativity and embrace new ways of serving our audience.

The Midwest Newsroom continually seeks opportunities to improve how we identify subjects to cover and voices to include.

Ethics policies

The Midwest Newsroom follows the ethics practices, standards and guidelines set out by its parent news organization, KCUR, and its partner, NPR. In addition, The Midwest Newsroom may submit questions and concerns about ethics to KCUR’s employee-led Ethics Committee.

• NPR’s Code can be found here
• KCUR Ethics Guidelines

Our guiding philosophy is to cover the world as it is, not as we wish it were.

Our coverage must be complete, accurate, transparent, respectful and independent. We are expected to conduct ourselves in a manner that leaves no question about our commitment to these principles.

We recognize that our perspectives on the world are shaped by many factors including our background, family histories and lived experiences.

Many of us bring to the job a formal education; all of us learn through daily on-the-job training in a rapidly changing world. We recognize that people experience the world differently; we also know there are verifiable, documentable facts.

As a nonprofit news collaboration, we are committed to producing journalism that reflects the highest standards of fairness and accuracy. We are always examining and questioning the credibility of others. Whether we work as reporters, hosts, newscasters, announcers, writers, editors, photographers or producers of news, podcasts, music or other content, we have to stand that test ourselves. Our content must meet the highest principles of credibility. Therefore, this Ethics Policy applies to all Midwest Newsroom employees, full-time or part-time, and any freelancers or contractors who are producing content for or representing either station in the community.

Each of us is tasked with upholding the values of our organization, to be fair, accurate, transparent and respectful in our daily work.

We are committed to improving diversity, equity and inclusion in our organization and our reporting, which is why we are one of several public media organizations taking specific actions outlined by Public Media For All.

Corrections Policy

For online corrections, the Midwest Newsroom follows the correction policy laid out by its parent organization, KCUR.

• Corrections go at the bottom of articles, unless the corrected mistake fundamentally changes the story itself.
• The correction will include when the change was made (time and date).
• If you’re correcting a simple error – such as a misspelled name or incorrect date – try to write the correction in a way that doesn’t repeat the mistake.
• In general, reporters can make these kinds of small corrections to their own stories, but they should always let an editor know they’ve done so.
• Sometimes, it’s impossible to write a correction without repeating a mistake. For example, maybe you misattributed a quote. In that case, you’re going to have to specify who actually did the speaking as well as who didn’t. It’s OK to provide context, but it’s important that we take ownership of our mistakes so our community can trust we’ll correct ourselves when necessary.
• On occasion, we’re going to make more serious mistakes than misspelling and misattribution. If you’ve made a serious factual error in your reporting or spotted one in a colleague’s story, make sure you take your concerns to an editor right away. We’ll work as a team to find the right words to make sure our audience knows we take accuracy seriously. We may also decide to move the update text to the top of the story.

For on-air corrections, The Midwest Newsroom follow’s NPR policy:

• NPR corrects significant errors in broadcast and online reports. Corrections of errors will be made in audio archives, written transcripts and on the website. 

Journalism values of KCUR

Our guiding philosophy is to cover the world as it is, not as we wish it were. Our coverage must be complete, accurate, transparent, respectful and independent. We are expected to conduct ourselves in a manner that leaves no question about our commitment to these principles.

Complete means that we present all important views and information on a subject. This may be encompassed in a single story on a controversial topic, or it may play out over a body of coverage. But at all times the commitment to presenting all important views must be conscious and affirmative, and it must be timely if it is being accomplished over the course of more than one story. We do not endorse or take positions on partisan or political subjects in our reporting.

Accurate means that we make rigorous efforts at all levels of the newsgathering process to ensure our facts are correct and presented in the proper context. We attempt to verify what our sources and the officials we interview tell us when the material involved is contentious or open to different interpretations. Factual errors will always be corrected promptly and with transparency both on air and online. We do not approach any coverage with overt or hidden agendas. The burden is on KCUR journalists to ensure that our use of actualities, quotes or paraphrases are true to the meaning the interviewee or speaker intended. Photographs associated with KCUR content must show the events they depict truthfully and honestly.

Transparent means that we do not deceive the people or institutions we cover about our identity or intentions, and we do not deceive our listeners. Plagiarism will not be tolerated and will result in disciplinary action. We embrace transparency in all aspects of our organization; we correct mistakes and avoid conflicts of interest. When conflicts are unavoidable, we disclose these to our audience. KCUR journalists must conduct themselves at all times in a manner that leaves no grounds for belief, or even the appearance, that information they have gathered on the job has been used for personal gain, financial or otherwise.

Respectful means treating the people we cover and our audience with respect by approaching subjects in an open-minded, sensitive and civil way and by recognizing the diversity of the communities on which we report, and the diversity of interests, attitudes and experiences of our audience. KCUR journalists show sensitivity when seeking or using interviews of those affected by hardship, tragedy or grief. They show special sensitivity when dealing with children and inexperienced sources or subjects, or individuals who have difficulty understanding the language in which they are being interviewed.

Independent means that we remain editorially independent in all our coverage. In conducting its journalism, KCUR employees may not accept compensation, including property, gifts or benefits of any kind, from people or institutions they cover or put on the air.* KCUR journalists pick up the check for themselves when they can (i.e., they are not wined and dined by sources). KCUR employees do not make financial contributions to political candidates or political action committees, or otherwise lend individual public support to particular political candidates or political advocacy efforts.

Midwest Newsroom journalists do not pay for information from sources or newsmakers. They do not allow sources or interviewees to dictate how a topic will be covered, or which other voices or ideas will be included. It is not the role of Midwest Newsroom employees to professionally advance particular policy or political aims that are being contested in the public arena. They do not agree to submit questions in advance unless the Managing Editor approves a specific instance. If questions are submitted in advance, this will be disclosed in our coverage.

Employees, contractors and freelancers must disclose potential conflicts of interest to their supervisor/editor/producer as soon as it is known.

Conflicts of interest: KCUR, The Midwest Newsroom's home station, is licensed by the University of Missouri Board of Curators and is an editorially independent community service of the University of Missouri-Kansas City. All staff are employees of the university and thus adhere to the UMKC Code of Conduct.

When reporting on issues involving the university, The Midwest Newsroom treats its partner license holders, including UMKC, like any other organization in terms of assessing newsworthiness. Reporters pursue stories about with the same freedom they have in writing about anyone else. We do not have conversations with leadership at the university about how we are reporting or what we plan to do.

It’s critical that we write about KCUR and other partner organizations as such news develops and that we be transparent. Any story about a partner must be read and approved by an editorial manager who will keep the general managers informed. Coverage of partners will remain independent executive leadership.

Unnamed Sources: The Midwest Newsroom follows NPR guidelines for anonymous sources:

Although NPR journalists do agree to talk to sources on background when necessary, NPR's strong preference is to have sources stay "on the record." Before any such information is reported, reporters must make every reasonable effort to get it on the record — if not from that source, then from somewhere else.

Before we rely on information from anonymous sources, we press them hard on exactly what they know and how they know it — and we press them hard for as detailed a description as possible of who they are and their motivation (if any) to use in our reports. Our goal is to tell listeners and readers as much as we can about why this person is being quoted.

So, for example, "a senior White House official who was at the meeting and heard what the president said," is the type of language we use. "An official" is not.

Guideline: The 'don'ts' of anonymity

No attacks. In our coverage, anonymous or unnamed sources generally cannot make pejorative comments about the character, reputation, or personal qualities of another individual, or derogatory statements about an institution. We don't use such material in our stories, with rare exceptions. (If an individual is blowing the whistle on significant misdeeds or making an allegation of sexual assault, we may decide to air the person's claims. But we would only make such a decision after careful deliberation with senior news managers.)

No disguises. We may withhold a source's name who talks to us on tape or on the record, if that individual might be put in danger, legal jeopardy or face some other serious threat if their name is revealed. We may refer to the person without using a last name, if he or she is comfortable with that degree of anonymity and if we decide the situation meets our criteria for granting anonymity. But we don't use pseudonyms to replace their real name.

No offers. Occasionally in the course of our reporting, a source will agree to share information only if it's not attributed to him or her. Journalists should use their good judgment to determine whether the information merits such a decision. However, we do not begin our quest for interviews by promising to keep a source anonymous or off the record. Our goal is to get as much information as possible on the record.

Guideline: A supervisor decides if anonymous news is shared

Individual NPR journalists — reporters, producers, bloggers and others — do not on their own have the authority to assure any individual that information he gives us anonymously will be reported on our airwaves or by NPR.org.

For sure, sometimes in the course of reporting we gather important information that a source will only reveal if the conversation is "off the record." But the decision as to whether that information will be reported by NPR can only be made in consultation with an editor. As the level of importance of the information rises, so should the level of editor who is pulled into the conversation. There is no hard-and-fast rule. When in doubt, editors should always err on the side of caution and consult with the next person above them.

If a reporter and editor know ahead of time that a key interview can only be done if the source is granted anonymity, they must have a conversation in advance with a senior editor and make the case for granting it.

Guideline: Describe anonymous sources as clearly as you can without identifying them.

When a decision is made to use information that we have obtained from a source that must remain anonymous, we describe in as much detail as we can (without revealing so much that we effectively identify that person) how they know this information, their motivations (if any) and any other biographical details that will help a listener or reader evaluate the source's credibility.

It is never enough to say "NPR has learned" something. It is not enough to report that "officials say" something, or that some detail is "reportedly" true. If it is important for listeners or readers to know, for example, what political party the source is from, we report that information. If it is important to know what agency the source is from, we report that. If it is important to know which side of an issue the source represents, we report that. We push to get as much detail as we can about how the source knows this information, and to get the source's agreement to report as much of that detail as possible. Was she in the room when the meeting happened? Does he have a copy of the report? Did he participate in the investigation?

Guideline: When you cite the sources of others, attribute clearly.

When we attribute information to anonymous sources, it is assumed that these are our sources and that we have obtained the information firsthand from them. If this is not the case, and we are referring to reports in other news outlets based on anonymous sources of theirs, we are meticulous about attributing the information to those other outlets and we describe as fully as possible who those sources are.

Verification policy/practices: The Midwest Newsroom follow’s NPR’s practices for accuracy, including verification.

Accuracy is at the core of what we do. We do our best to ensure that everything we report faithfully depicts reality – from the tiniest detail to the big-picture context that helps put the news into perspective. Facts are incredibly slippery. Studies of press accuracy routinely find mistakes – sometimes many of them – in news media reports. This means that when journalists – even the best ones – think they're getting it right, they're all too often wrong. Errors are inevitable. But our best defense against them is constant vigilance. This is why we systematically and rigorously review our facts before we make our reporting public.

Guideline: Be able to identify the source of each fact you report.

When making a general assertion of fact in a story, the reporter and editor should be able to immediately identify the source and explain why that person or organization is credible and authoritative. This is essential to the editing process and it also lets us stand by our reporting in a clear and convincing way if a story comes under question. We should never be in the position of looking for corroboration after a report has been published or broadcast.

NPR accuracy checklist:

Before our reporting reaches the public, we check "everything that walks or talks or acts like a fact."1 While it may seem elementary, a simple checklist can be a powerful tool to make sure we haven't made any oversights. Here's a set of questions to ask before you call any story complete:

• Is every name and title correctly spelled? (And, in the case of radio, correctly pronounced according to either the subject himself or someone else with direct knowledge of how to say it?)
• Are the quotes accurate and properly attributed?
• Have I reviewed my spelling and grammar? (Special note: yes, it's important for NPR journalists to spell names, places and other key facts accurately in their radio scripts because those details end up in our Web reports.)
• Is every number and calculation correct? (Related tip: triple-check any references to millions, billions or trillions; confusing them is one of the most common mistakes made. Also: triple-check your references to percentages to ensure that you shouldn't be saying "percentage points" instead. If you're not sure which you should use, ask one of the reporters or editors who cover business and the economy or someone from the Planet Money team.)
• Are all the terms being used correctly? For example, was the suspect really "arrested" or is he only being questioned?
• Does every fact in the story match the information with any photos or graphics associated with it? (Special note: again, it's important for NPR journalists who are primarily reporting for radio to check their pieces against such material.)
• Do I need to check a source's "fact" against what others are saying? Advocates can skew things in their favor.
• Is the story fair? Read or listen one more time. Try to come to it as if you were a listener or reader, not the reporter, editor or producer.
• Does it hang together? Our conclusions are supported by facts. We pause before broadcast or publication to ask if we have answered all the questions that can be answered. If important questions can't be resolved, we make sure our listeners and readers know what they are.

Bylines: The Midwest Newsroom uses bylines at all times. When there is more than one reporter, all contributors are listed in the byline field. We include bios with email addresses at the end of each story, so that readers can contact the reporter or reporters.

Our radio reporters include the reporter’s name in the introduction and as an “out cue.”

For example: “Reporting for the Midwest Newsroom, I’m Jane Doe.”

We do not use "by staff" bylines. We do not use news agency copy, although we may cite a news agency article (with link) in a story.

Paying for information: We do not pay sources for information or for interviews, and we do not pay subjects in exchange for permission to take photos or video of them.

Just ask

If you have any questions, story ideas or comments, please contact us via one of several methods.

Thank you!