Standards, Policies & Ethics

Our Commitment to You: We started The Citrus Tea News because Polk County deserves a news outlet that cares about this community as much as its residents do. Our mission is to provide honest, unbiased, local news that matters to the residents of Polk County, Florida. These standards are how we keep that promise to you.

Accuracy & Fact-Checking: Every piece of original reporting we publish is first fact-checked against primary sources. We lean on public records, official documents, direct interviews, and verified data, nothing less. We follow Associated Press style. And if we can’t verify something, we say so, or we wait until we can.

Editing & Review: Nothing goes live at The Citrus Tea News without being reviewed and edited first, for accuracy, for fairness, and to make sure it holds up to our standards. That includes work from our student contributors and columnists. Our editorial team reads it before you do.

Corrections: We’re not perfect, and when we get something wrong, we fix it and we tell you we fixed it. Corrections are noted at the top of the original article with the date and what changed. If you spot an error, email [email protected] with the article link and what you found. I take every one of those emails seriously.

Opinion & Commentary: Opinion, commentary, columns, and faith-based posts are always clearly labeled and kept separate from our news reporting. Our columnists are speaking for themselves, not for the publication.

Right of Response: Before we publish a story naming or implicating someone, we reach out and give them a chance to respond. If they don’t get back to us in time, we tell you that too.

Editorial Independence: The Citrus Tea News LLC has one owner, the founder and editor, Becky McLachlan. It is owned and operated independently through The Citrus Tea News LLC. There is no corporate parent, and no outside investors pulling strings to force or remove coverage of a story or investigative report. Advertising and sponsorship dollars never decide what we cover or how we cover it. That call belongs to our editorial team, fully and completely. We don’t publish anything in exchange for ad money.

Funding & Revenue: The main mission of our publication is to keep it free for readers. Fundamentally, because it is a community resource meant to keep residents more informed with reliable and unbiased news. We are funded by reader support, local and programmatic advertising, as well as partnerships and sponsorships from Polk County businesses. Our journalism is supported by the same business community we report on, and we maintain a strict separation between those relationships and our newsroom.

Nonpartisan Stance: We don’t endorse candidates or parties here. We work hard to be fair in political coverage and give equal opportunity for response, no matter where someone falls on the political spectrum. On stories about politics, elections, or government decisions, our job is to inform you, not to tell you what to think. We give you the facts and trust you to take it from there.

Political Advertising Disclosure: We do accept paid political advertising from candidates, political committees, electioneering communications organizations, and issue advocates, subject to acceptance and payment in advance at our published rates.

Our advertising and editorial operations are kept strictly separate. No advertiser, sponsor, candidate, political committee, or political party gets advance notice of our coverage, a review of unpublished content, favorable placement in news coverage, or any influence over what we report. Buying advertising doesn’t buy coverage, and choosing not to advertise doesn’t hurt it either. We don’t endorse candidates or ballot measures.

Every piece of paid political content is labeled so a reasonable reader can immediately tell it apart from our news. Political ads are marked as paid political advertising. Sponsored or advertiser-provided articles are labeled “Sponsored Content” or “Paid Advertisement” at the top and are never written by our newsroom.

Sponsors are responsible for their own legally required disclaimers. Under Florida law, a political advertisement paid for by a candidate must prominently state that it was paid for and approved by that candidate, including party affiliation and office sought. Any other political advertisement must be marked “paid political advertisement” or “pd. pol. adv.,” state the sponsor’s name and address, and disclose whether the ad and its production were paid for or provided in kind by us, or by someone else if that’s the case. Electioneering communications must carry the statutory “paid electioneering communication” disclaimer with the name and address of whoever paid for it. Communications involving federal candidates placed for a fee on this website are public communications under federal law and must carry a clear disclaimer identifying who paid for the ad and whether a candidate authorized it. We won’t publish political advertising that’s missing a compliant disclaimer.

We don’t do free or discounted political advertising. Political advertisers pay our published rates. We don’t donate, discount, trade, or comp advertising space to candidates, committees, or parties, because doing so would count as a reportable in-kind contribution and would compromise our independence.

Political advertising is offered to all qualified candidates and committees on the same terms, subject to space availability and our right to refuse any ad.

If an advertiser or sponsor becomes the subject of our reporting, that relationship is disclosed within the story.

Op-eds, letters, and guest columns are unpaid, labeled as opinion, and can’t be purchased. Please contact [email protected] for republishing requests.

Anonymous Sources: We use anonymous sources only when the information genuinely matters to the public, and there’s no way to get it on the record. It’s never a shortcut. Every use requires editorial judgment and sign-off, and we independently confirm what we’re told before it ever runs.

Sponsored Content and Sponsor Features: Some of our sponsorship packages include a written feature about the sponsor’s business. These are paid placements, and we label them that way. Every one is marked as a Sponsor Feature at the top of the piece, styled to look different from our news coverage, and kept out of our news sections and news reporting.

We also publish unpaid business spotlights as part of our regular coverage. Those are chosen by our editorial team because they’re stories worth telling, not because anyone paid for them. Being a sponsor doesn’t earn a business news coverage, and not being a sponsor doesn’t keep one out.

Our news reporting is never for sale. If a sponsor becomes the subject of a news story, we report it the same way we’d report on anyone else.

Advertising Is Not an Endorsement. Advertising keeps The Citrus Tea News free for every reader in Polk County. But an ad is an ad. It never buys coverage.

We accept political advertising, and it’s always clearly labeled as paid political advertising. Buying space here does not buy a story, a headline, or our silence. Candidates who advertise get the same treatment in our reporting as candidates who don’t.

The same goes for every business on this site. An ad, sponsorship, directory listing, or sponsor feature does not mean we endorse that business, its owners, its politics, or its practices. Advertisers speak for themselves, and their views and actions do not reflect those of The Citrus Tea News LLC.

We reserve the right to decline or remove any ad we believe is false, misleading, or inconsistent with our standards.

The Citrus Tea News is a small, independent newsroom, and AI tools help our team cover all 17 municipalities of Polk County. We use AI for research and support tasks, such as reviewing lengthy agendas and public records, transcribing meetings, and checking grammar. These tools support our work but do not replace our reporting or our editorial judgment.

Every piece of content we publish is reviewed by a person before it goes live, and anything drawn from AI-assisted work is checked against the source. We do not use AI to create quotes, sources, or facts, or to produce images that could be mistaken for real photography. Accountability for our journalism always rests with people, not tools.

Questions or Concerns: Got a question about our standards, or a concern about something we published? Reach me at [email protected]. Questions about advertising? Go to [email protected].