Statement and Policies

Our Mission

The Solano Pulse seeks to amplify community voices with clarity and provide full representation of, and for, our diverse population. As a student-run publication, we embrace all of the differences that make us unique and commit to equitable coverage based on accurate, impartial and transparent reporting. Our reporting is focused on Solano College students and the local community.

Our Policies

Writing Style

Content on the Pulse follows the Associated Press Stylebook.

Corrections

We are committed to making prompt corrections of factual errors. Requests for corrections can be submitted to [email protected], with Editor somewhere in the subject line. Please provide a link to the story you believe needs a factual correction and any relevant information or evidence to support your request.

How we deal with corrections:

Typos and misspellings that do not affect factual accuracy may be fixed by editors without a correction notice. Minor factual errors that do not alter the story will be fixed and the correction will be noted at the bottom of the page. Major errors such as misidentification of a source, inaccurate information or quotes will be corrected and may include additional context or a formal statement, at the discretion of the editors.  If you have identified an error, please contact [email protected], with Editor  and include any evidence you have to support your correction.

Content Removal and Retractions

The Solano Pulse will not take down an article except when an egregious, uncorrectable error has been made; the content is deemed to be plagiarized, AI-generated or otherwise not the original work of the writer; or someone is put in danger. Any content removal will be determined on a case-by-case basis by the Solano Pulse team, with the decision ultimately made by the Editorial staff, and accompanied by a statement of retraction.

Editorial independence

The Solano Pulse is a student-led news organization.  In order to protect journalistic integrity, the staff has full authority over content, including text, images and layout.  Sources, advisors, and college employees may not preview or edit content.  California law prohibits prior review of content, such as “a school official telling student journalists that they cannot publish a story, taking action to prevent them from doing so, or holding student media for more than 72 hours.”  All content goes through a systematic review process and only Managing Editors are authorized to publish.

Staffing

The Pulse is staffed by students who are enrolled in Journalism 60, 61, 62, and 63 (News Production and Publication I-IV).  Students in JOUR 62 and 63 are required to hold managerial positions, including Editor-in-Chief, Spanish editor, copy editor, photography editor, and website manager, and/or participate in promotion, recruitment, and distribution.  The Editing team is nominated and voted on, each semester, by the entire staff, with input from the Advisor.  

Students who have completed the four-semester sequence are invited to continue reporting for The Pulse, but may not hold official positions. 

Privacy policy:

The Solano Pulse website collects data, monitors interactions and retains metadata, related to embedded content, indefinitely. The website host will track your IP address; however, The Solano Pulse staff will not be able to access this information unless you choose to comment.

AI Policy

The Solano Pulse prohibits the use of generative AI for writing or rewriting stories, creating images, editing articles or images, summarizing documents, finding data, communicating with sources or generating interview questions.

AI is permitted only for editing mechanics (grammar, spelling, punctuation) and transcription of interviews. Transcripts must be thoroughly reviewed for accuracy and original recordings of interviews should be archived. Staff may use audio software to clean up recordings, but raw files will be retained.

The Solano Pulse Staff prohibits the usage of our articles, photos and information to train any AI models whatsoever.

Anonymous Sources

The Solano Pulse’s policies for granting anonymity are guided by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics.  We “reserve anonymity for sources who may face danger, retribution or other harm,” including physical, emotional or political.  We will never rely on a single, anonymous source for a story, nor include anonymous sources if the information can be obtained elsewhere.  We will always consider a source’s motives and explain our decision to grant anonymity.  The Managing Editor(s) will make the final decision whether or not to include evidence from an anonymous source in an article.

Social Media

The Solano Pulse allows for student journalists to have their own personal accounts, but require their personal accounts to be private. The beliefs of individual reporters do not reflect the beliefs of the news organization.

The Pulse has an official Instagram account and TikTok account titled “solanopulse”, if you want to reach us on social media those will be the titles we plan on using. The Solano Pulse does not republish or reshare stories from other organizations to our social media accounts. We make every effort to avoid sharing misinformation, disinformation or AI-generated content. 

Communication

The Solano Pulse uses Discord in order to communicate with each other. This is because of personal privacy, if you are going to be in the discord server please follow the rules posted and be respectful to your fellow classmates. As it’s a personal discord server, we can still chat and have fun while also tracking our progress as a news organization.

Comments

We appreciate your input!  All comments are reviewed to determine that they were written by a human and are appropriate for our audience. If you have any concerns, please reach us at [email protected] for further inquiry.