Editorial mission and scope
AFDES publishes civic research, election information, public-opinion analysis, commentary, educational material, public records, data visualizations, institutional information, and other work concerning democracy, governance, public policy, international affairs, and public-interest institutions.
The form of a publication should be clear to readers. Factual resources, institutional statements, research, analysis, and signed commentary may serve different purposes and should not be presented as though they are interchangeable.
Editorial independence
Editorial decisions should be made independently of donors, payment providers, sponsors, advertisers, political campaigns, public officials, outside organizations, and other financial or institutional pressure. Support for AFDES does not entitle a donor or partner to dictate coverage, suppress a correction, select findings, or control editorial conclusions.
Accuracy, verification, and context
AFDES seeks to publish information that is accurate, fairly characterized, and supported by sources appropriate to the claim being made. Material factual assertions should be verified before publication when reasonably possible. Editors and contributors should distinguish verified facts from inference, analysis, allegation, estimate, and opinion.
- Statistics, quotations, records, dates, and public claims should be checked against reliable source material and presented with relevant context.
- Headlines, summaries, captions, thumbnails, maps, and visual treatments must not materially overstate the underlying content.
- Developing information should be identified as preliminary when material facts remain unsettled.
- AFDES should not knowingly publish fabricated citations, invented quotations, manipulated evidence, or unsupported allegations as fact.
Sourcing and attribution
AFDES favors identifiable, primary, official, academic, documentary, or otherwise reliable sources when they are reasonably available. Secondary reporting may be used when appropriate and should be evaluated for reliability, proximity to the underlying event, and corroboration.
Anonymous or confidential sourcing should be used only when there is a legitimate public-interest reason for protecting a source and when editors have sufficient basis to evaluate the information. AFDES should not grant anonymity merely to avoid accountability for opinion or political attack.
Analysis, commentary, and viewpoint
AFDES may publish analysis and commentary that reaches a conclusion or expresses a viewpoint. Such work should still identify the factual basis for its reasoning, fairly represent material countervailing facts, and avoid presenting speculation as established fact.
A signed author's analysis or commentary does not necessarily constitute an institutional position of AFDES. Institutional statements should be identified as such.
Election information and live-data systems
Election-related displays may depend on official election authorities, licensed providers, public records, historical datasets, or normalized data feeds. AFDES should clearly distinguish live or current reporting from simulation, provider testing, historical replay, preliminary data, or internal demonstrations.
AFDES does not treat its own display as legal certification of an election result. Where official certification, recounts, litigation, unresolved reporting, or provider corrections may materially affect a result, the status should be reflected when relevant and reasonably known.
Public-opinion, survey, and statistical data
Public-opinion and statistical products should identify their underlying source or dataset when practicable and should not imply a level of precision, representativeness, causation, or certainty that the data do not support. Sample limitations, methodology, weighting, missing data, geographic scope, and other material qualifications should be disclosed where they affect interpretation.
Correlation, association, or model output should not be described as proof of causation unless the underlying research design supports that conclusion.
Corrections, clarifications, and updates
Material factual errors should be corrected promptly after they are substantiated. The form of the correction should be proportionate to the error and may include an in-text correction, correction note, updated caption or data display, clarification, replacement of defective material, or separate update.
Routine copy edits, formatting changes, link repairs, and changes that do not alter substantive meaning do not necessarily require a correction notice. AFDES should not silently change a material factual conclusion in a way that would mislead readers about the original publication.
Conflicts of interest and disclosures
Editors, writers, researchers, and contributors should disclose significant financial, political, professional, organizational, or personal interests that could reasonably call their independence into question with respect to a subject being covered. A disclosure may be made to editors, to readers, or both depending on the nature and significance of the conflict.
Contributor responsibility and rights clearance
Contributors are expected to submit original or lawfully used material, provide accurate attribution, disclose relevant conflicts, protect legitimate privacy and safety interests, and cooperate with reasonable editorial verification. A contributor should not submit text, photographs, graphics, recordings, data, or other material that the contributor knows is unlawfully obtained, defamatory, fabricated, plagiarized, or used without a sufficient legal basis.
Where a submission includes third-party material, the contributor may be asked to identify the source, license, consent, public-domain status, fair-use rationale, or other basis on which AFDES may lawfully review or publish the material. Plagiarism, fabricated evidence, undisclosed material conflicts, knowing falsification, or material misrepresentation of publication rights may result in rejection, correction, removal, or termination of the contributor relationship.
Visual integrity, photographs, and AI-assisted image production
AFDES may use photography, maps, charts, diagrams, licensed graphics, archival material, illustrations, composites, and AI-assisted or AI-generated visuals in connection with articles and research products. AI may be used in the production of article feature images, conceptual illustrations, backgrounds, graphic treatments, or other non-documentary visual material.
An AI-generated or materially AI-altered visual must not be presented as authentic documentary photography, eyewitness evidence, or a factual image of an event that actually occurred. When a synthetic, composite, or materially altered visual could reasonably be mistaken for documentary evidence, AFDES should identify its illustrative or AI-assisted nature in the caption, image credit, alt text, article note, or another reasonably visible disclosure.
Ordinary editorial adjustments to documentary photographs—such as cropping, resizing, exposure correction, color balance, noise reduction, or resolution enhancement—should not materially change the factual meaning of the image. Material additions, removals, substitutions, or generative edits that alter what a documentary image depicts require disclosure and should not be used in a manner that misleads the reader.
Artificial intelligence and automated editorial tools
AFDES may use AI-assisted or automated tools for tasks such as drafting support, research organization, transcription, translation, editing, summarization, coding assistance, formatting, accessibility, image production, and workflow efficiency. AI output is not treated as an authoritative source merely because it was generated by a software system.
Material factual claims, quotations, citations, statistics, and conclusions remain subject to human editorial review and source verification. AI systems may assist production, but they do not assume authorship responsibility and do not replace the accountability of the human editor, author, or AFDES decision-maker responsible for publication.
Editors and contributors should exercise particular care before placing confidential source material, unpublished sensitive information, personal data, privileged material, or restricted documents into an external AI service.
Privacy, dignity, and safety
Public-interest reporting and analysis may involve information about identifiable people. AFDES should weigh the public value of publication against unnecessary intrusion, foreseeable harm, personal safety, and the sensitivity of the information involved. The fact that information is technically obtainable does not by itself require publication of every personal detail.
Additional caution is appropriate when content concerns minors, private individuals who have not voluntarily entered a public controversy, victims, confidential sources, precise private-location information, medical or financial information, or other material that could create disproportionate harm without a sufficient public-interest justification.
Publication-risk and legal review
Material involving serious allegations of criminality or misconduct, disputed factual accusations, confidential or leaked records, substantial privacy interests, copyrighted third-party material, threats to personal safety, or other significant legal risk should receive heightened editorial review before publication when reasonably practicable.
Depending on the circumstances, review may include additional sourcing, document authentication, seeking comment from a person or institution materially criticized, narrowing unnecessary personal details, confirming publication rights, reviewing captions and headlines, preserving source material, or obtaining qualified legal advice. The appropriate level of review depends on the seriousness of the claim, reliability of the evidence, urgency, public interest, and foreseeable harm.
Seeking comment does not require AFDES to publish every response in full, delay publication indefinitely, or accept a source's characterization of events. Relevant responses should be considered fairly in light of the evidence and available space or format.
Editorial concerns, complaints, and correction requests
Readers may report a possible factual error, sourcing concern, visual-integrity issue, attribution problem, privacy concern, copyright issue, or other editorial matter through the AFDES contact page. A useful request should identify the article or page, the specific statement or material at issue, and supporting information when available.
AFDES may investigate, correct, clarify, annotate, restrict, replace, or remove material when warranted. A correction, clarification, update, removal, response to a complaint, or decision to seek additional review does not by itself constitute an admission of legal liability, wrongdoing, or the validity of every allegation raised by the complainant.
Relationship to legal terms
This Editorial Policy states standards AFDES seeks to follow in good faith. It does not guarantee that every publication will be error-free, complete, or immune from later correction, and—except where applicable law provides otherwise—it does not create a separate contractual warranty, private right of action, or entitlement to publication, correction, removal, compensation, or a particular editorial outcome.
Use of AFDES.org remains subject to the Terms of Use, and handling of personal information is addressed in the Privacy Policy. Nothing in this Policy limits rights or remedies that applicable law does not permit AFDES to waive or restrict.
Organization: American Foundation for Democratic Stability, Inc.