PUBLISHING GUIDELINES

LeatherPage.com operates on the principle that in order to win and hold the public trust, the leather press must operate to certain standards. A writer who violates those standards hurts us all and may be removed from this site.

In brief, those LeatherPage standards (for both news and opinion) include:

Accuracy

• Seek to report the truth to the best of one's skills, without deliberate distortions or misrepresentation.
• Make every effort to confirm information as accurate to avoid inadvertent error.
• Do not plagiarize. Give proper attribution to the work of others.

Independence

• Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.
• Refuse gifts, honorariums, paid expenses, special treatment, positions (paid or unpaid), etc. if such compromises (or might appear to compromise) journalistic integrity.
• If conflicts are unavoidable, they must be disclosed to your readers.

Accountability

• Be ready to stand behind your story with clarifications, background or documentation.
• Encourage the public to voice grievances against the news media. Provide an avenue for response.
• Admit mistakes and correct them promptly.

Civility

• A community journalist owes extraordinary attention to the privacy, fairness, sensitivities and respect due their community.
• It is blatantly unfair to use a position in the media to personally attack those without similar opportunity.
• LeatherPage.com will not be a forum for personal vendettas or attacks.

[Based on the Ethics Code of the Society of Professional Journalists. For the full Code see- http://www.spj.org/ethics_code.asp]