Publishing Policy
For brands as good as their word.
Trust in information is eroding, and most of the conversation is about what audiences should do — fact-check, be skeptical, stay literate. We think the responsibility belongs to the organizations that control the platforms, the publications, and the URLs where information originates. They should define what they stand for, and stand behind it publicly.
Historically, attempts to solve this have relied on third-party arbiters, fact-checkers, or external standards. But applying external standards often leads to endless debate over who writes the rules. Our approach removes the universal rulebook entirely.
A publishing policy is an organization's own standards, written in its own words, kept on a public record that cannot be quietly edited. There is only one rule: what you publish should live up to what you said. Readers don't have to trust our judgment—they can check the public record and decide for themselves if an organization is living up to its word.
Published policies are licensed CC-BY 4.0. Anyone can quote, share, or reference a published policy with attribution, even if the publisher later replaces or deactivates it.
This is intentional. A publishing policy is a public commitment, and public commitments should be citable. If an organization says “we verify every claim with two independent sources,” their audience should be able to hold them to it.
Unpublished drafts are private and never shared. The license only applies when you choose to publish.
Publishing Policy is currently built and operated by Roarke Clinton. The long-term plan is to incorporate as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, ensuring the registry is governed independently and never controlled by a single entity. Until that transition happens, it operates as an independent project built in public.
We believe infrastructure for trust should be transparent. You can see how the platform is built, what changes are being made, and how it fits into the maker's wider work in the showcase on roarke.io.
“Malpublishing”—the failure to live up to your own stated standards—was coined by Roarke in March 2023. Because you write your own policy, you define your own rules for handling mistakes. Malpublishing isn't a judgment on how you correct errors; it simply means breaking the public promises you chose to make. The full definition sits with the answer to what a publishing policy is.
Free. No credit card required.