About
Table of Contents
About RealTech Magazine
Founded in 2020, RealTech Magazine is both a print and digital magazine offering our readers the latest news, videos, thought-pieces, etc. on various business topics including:
- Content Features & Featured Stories
- Expert Opnion Pieces
- Industry Leader Profiles
- CEO Interviews
- Founder Interviews
- Startup News
- Business News
- Entrepreneurship News
- Money & Investment News
Mission Statement
The mission of RealTech Magazine is to:
- Try to meet or exceed as many of the guidelines & regulations as outlined by TheTrustProject.org a collaboration among news organizations around the world. Its goal is to create strategies that fulfill journalism’s basic pledge: to serve society with a truthful, intelligent and comprehensive account of ideas and events.
- Provide a safe, fair, and diverse outlet for our journalists and editors to work (See Our Diversity Statement, Ethics Policy, No-Byline Policy & Explination, & Policiy On Sources))
- Provide honest, impartial, and diverse articles, stories, & content to our readers (See our Site-Wide Policies, Corrections Policy, and more)
- To abide by our core values and governing principles as outlined below…
Our Core Values
Accuracy
Accuracy is our most important standard. We take every effort to uncover and present the truth in a fair, focused nonpartisan and thorough manner. If we make a mistake, we openly acknowledge it and file a correction.
Independance
We are independent and nonpartisan. We are not beholden to advertisers or sponsors guiding our content through influence. We tell each story as is — regardless of who or what is at issue.
Community
We write stories for and about various & diverse communities. Our opinion pages, comment sections, social channels and community forums encourage a respectful exchange of perspectives.
Transparency
Public records belong to the public, but bureaucrats don’t often agree. We believe in finding the truth in every situation and ensuring transparency whereever and whenever possible.
Ethics Policy (Sitewide Policies)
RealTech Magazine is committed to reporting that is fair, accurate, complete, transparent, and independent. We follow & abide by the following policies accross our site.
Verification & Fact Checking Standards
Stories that appear in RealTech Magazine (in both digital & print version), RealTechMagazine.com, and our accounts on various social media platforms are fact-checked. Our fact-checkers verify everything from broad claims made by authors to small details, such as dates and the spelling of names. Fact-checking records at RealTech Magazine are archived in storage once a story is published.
RealTech Magazine counts on its writers to make independent evaluations of difficult topics. The best journalism—no matter how descriptive, opinion driven, or narrative driven—is based on facts, and those facts should be clearly presented in the story.
RealTech Magazine is committed to ensuring the validity of an argument and finding balance between various perspectives on any given issue, while keeping in mind the reliability and motivations of individual sources.
Veiled Sources Policy
RealTech Magazine allows the use of alternate names for real people only in cases involving legitimate safety concerns or where personal privacy must be protected for serious reasons.
If the name of a subject or source is already public and associated with specific events, concealment may not be justified. We will be diligent in explaining a veiled source’s credibility, as much as possible without disclosing their identity, and in explaining why they have remained anonymous.
Corrections Policy
As soon as RealTech Magazine, our team and/or editors, are made aware of a possible error, our fact-checkers will review the statement in question.
Any needed corrections will be noted online at the bottom of the article—and in the next print issue, if the error originally appeared in print. The correction will reference the original error and supply the correct information and the date the correction was made.
If you notice an error in something published by RealTech Magazine, please send us a message at corrections@realtechmagazine.com with the subject line “Correction.”
Ownership, Funding, and Grants
RealTech Magazine is owned and operated by ElysianDigital LLC, which is a privately owned American Limited Liability Corporation. RealTech Magazine
generates revenue from multiple sources (both digital & print) including: advertising sales & comissions, sponsorships, and events. Sales, partnerships, and sponsorships are operated by ElysianDigital LLC or an affiliated partner.
Editorial Guidelines
Editorial Independence
Journalism at RealTech Magazine is produced independently of commercial or political interests. Whenever the editorial staff or external resources accept any gifts, paid travel, or complimentary experiences, the content will be clearly labeled as “sponsored”. When a writer relies on an organization for access to an event or product, we are transparent about the relationship and note it within the relevant work.
We also cite potential conflicts of interest—and, where applicable, credit funding sources—on the same page as the relevant work.
Contributors or writers are contractually obligated to disclose practices that may deviate from the Core Values, Ethics Policy, or Diversity Statement of RealTech Magazine to our editorial team.
Editorial Standards
RealTech Magazine maintains a editorial style guide, which is regularly reviewed and updated to reflect current conversations about culture and terminology.
For any situation not covered by this policy, we refer to the American Press Style Guide.
If you have any questions or comments, you can reach us at editor@realtechmagazine.com.
No-Byline Policy & Explination
The name of the reporter is usually not disclosed except in the case of features, opnions, analysis, or full-length reports that represent dedicated time by a single journalist.
The journalists identity is generally not provided for privacy and safety reasons, and also because we don’t want to differentiate the work of our contributors. Our journalism is a collective in nature, not individual.
- Senior Editor
- Staff Directory
Most of our articles don’t carry a byline to identify the author. Why is that?
We have over a dozen journalists and editors. The majority of our stories do not have bylines, as anonymity allows us to continue to speak with a single voice.
Instead, it is the voice of our editorial staff, especially those who have contributed to the article in question. Leaders are discussed and debated each week in meetings that are open to all members of the editorial staff. Journalists often co-operate on articles. And some articles are heavily edited. Our articles are the work of a group of people, rather than of a single author.
Our anonymity may make us look a little eccentric, but historically, anonymity was a common convention at many newspapers. That may be because of the belief, still held at RealTech Magazine as the main reason for our anonymity, that what is written is more important than who writes it. As a magazine that applies a set of clear principles to everything we cover, we believe it’s easier to do that consistently with a single voice — and that it is fairer to our readers.
Diversity Policy
Diversity is at the core of RealTech Magazine’s journalism. Accurately reporting stories from the United States and around the world means engaging a variety of voices as interviewees and first-person writers, striving for a staff that reflects a range of backgrounds and life experiences, and seeking feedback from all who would give it.
Diverse Voices Statement:
Inclusiveness is at the heart of thinking and acting as journalists. The complex issues we face as a society require respect for different viewpoints. Race (ethnicity), class, generation, gender and geography all affect point of view. Reflecting these differences in our reporting leads to better, more nuanced stories and a better-informed community.
We are interested in hearing from different ethnic, civic, and business groups in the communities that we serve. Please let us know about stories you think we should cover.
Sources Policy
RealTechMagazine.com is committed to disclosing to its readers the sources of the information in its stories to the maximum possible extent. We want to make our reporting as transparent to the readers as possible so they may know how and where we got our information. Transparency is honest and fair, two values we cherish.
Confidential Sources
Sources often insist that we agree not to name them before they agree to talk with us. We must be reluctant to grant their wish. When we use an unnamed source, we are asking our readers to take an extra step to trust the credibility of the information we are providing. We must be certain in our own minds that the benefit to readers is worth the cost in credibility.
In some circumstances, we will have no choice but to grant confidentiality to sources. We recognize that there are situations in which we can give our readers better, fuller information by allowing sources to remain unnamed than if we insist on naming them. We realize that in many circumstances, sources will be unwilling to reveal to us information about corruption in their own organizations, or high-level policy disagreements, for example, if disclosing their identities could cost them their jobs or expose them to harm. Nevertheless, granting anonymity to a source should not be done casually or automatically.
Named sources are vastly to be preferred to unnamed sources. Reporters should press to have sources go on the record. We have learned over the years that persistently pushing sources to identify themselves actually works — not always, of course, but more often than many reporters initially expect. If a particular source refuses to allow us to identify him or her, the reporter should consider seeking the information elsewhere.
Editors have an obligation to know the identity of unnamed sources used in a story, so that editors and reporters can jointly assess the appropriateness of using them. Some sources may insist that a reporter not reveal their identity to the reporter’s editors; we should resist this. When it happens, the reporter should make clear that information so obtained cannot be published. The source of anything that is published will be known to at least one editor.
We prefer at least two sources for factual information in our stories that depend on confidential informants, and those sources should be independent of each other. We prefer sources with firsthand or direct knowledge of the information. A relevant document can sometimes serve as a second source. There are situations in which we will publish information from a single source, but we should do so only after deliberations involving the executive editor, the managing editor and the appropriate department head. The judgment to use a single source depends on the source’s reliability and the basis for the source’s information.
We must strive to tell our readers as much as we can about why our unnamed sources deserve our confidence. Our obligation is to serve readers, not sources. This means avoiding attributions to “sources” or “informed sources.” Instead we should try to give the reader something more, such as “sources familiar with the thinking of defense lawyers in the case,” or “sources whose work brings them into contact with the county executive,” or “sources on the governor’s staff who disagree with his policy.”
Interacting With Sources
We strive to treat sources fairly. This means putting statements we quote into context, and summarizing the arguments of people we quote in ways that are recognizably fair and accurate. Potentially controversial statements by public figures and others should be quoted in a complete sentence or paragraph when possible, and in context. In some cases, this will mean making clear what question was being answered when the statement was made.
When seeking comment from people who are the subject of a story, we should give them a reasonable opportunity to respond to us. This means not calling at the last minute before deadline if we have any choice about timing.
We do not promise sources that we will refrain from additional reporting or efforts to verify the information they may give us.
We should not publish ad hominem quotations from unnamed sources. Sources who want to take a shot at someone should do so in their own names.
We should avoid blind quotations whose only purpose is to add color to a story.
We do not use pseudonyms, and we do not mislead our readers about the identities of people who appear in our stories. In the rare situations when we decide to identify someone by other than their full name, we do so in a straightforward manner — by using a first name only, for example. Editors must participate in decisions to provide less than a full name, and we must explain to readers why we are not using full names.
We do not fool or mislead sources. When identifying ourselves, we say we are reporters for RealTech Magazine. Our reporting should be honorable; we should be prepared to explain publicly anything we do to get a story.
Attribution
We must be truthful about the source of our information. Facts and quotations in a story that were not produced by our own reporting must be attributed. Attribution of material from other media must be total. Plagiarism is not permitted. It is the policy of this newspaper to give credit to other publications that develop exclusive stories worthy of coverage by RealTech Magazine.
Readers should be able to distinguish between what the reporter saw and what the reporter obtained from other sources such as wire services, pool reporters, email, websites, etc.
We place a premium value on original reporting. We expect RealTechMagazine.com reporters to see as much as they can of the story they are reporting and to talk to as many participants as possible. Reporters should consider the advantages of reporting from the scene of events they are covering whenever that is possible.
If a reporter was not present at a scene described in a story, the story should make that clear. Assertions that something actually happened although it was unseen by the reporter should be attributed, so the narrative device of describing an event as it was recounted to us by witnesses must include attribution. If we reconstruct statements or exchanges between people based on the recollections of those people or witnesses who heard them speak, we must attribute those recollections transparently. If you are unsure about the application of these guidelines in a particular situation, discuss it with your editors.
In some circumstances where a source has allowed us to see something that reporters would not otherwise be able to observe, special problems of attribution may arise. They should always be discussed with editors.
Any significant reporting by a stringer, staff member or other RealTech Magazine employee should be credited in a byline or a tagline at the end of a story. When such people take notes from broadcasts of news events on radio or television, conduct basic research or check routine facts, they need not be credited.
Journalistic Ground Rules
Journalistic ground rules can be confusing, but our goal is clarity in our dealings with sources and readers. This means explaining our ground rules to sources, and giving readers as much information as possible about how we learned the information in our stories.
If a source is not on the record, it is important to establish ground rules at the beginning of a conversation. In a taped interview, it is preferable for the discussion of ground rules to be on the tape. We strongly prefer on-the-record interviews to all other types, but we recognize that getting sources on the record is not always possible. When it is not, we owe readers explanations as to why not, as discussed above.
We should start virtually all interviews with the presumption that they are on the record. Inexperienced sources — usually ordinary people who unexpectedly find themselves the news — should clearly understand that you are a reporter and should not be surprised to find themselves quoted in the newspaper.
In establishing ground rules, the following are RealTechMagazine.com’s definitions of various forms of attribution. People use these terms to mean different things, so if your dealings with a source are going to be anything other than “on the record,” you should have a discussion to clarify the terms before you begin an interview.
On the record: For quotation, attributable to the source by name.
On background, or not for attribution: These both mean the same thing: information that can be attributed to “a police department official” or “a player on the team” who is not named. We must be careful, when dealing with sources who say they want to provide information “on background,” to explain that to us that means we can quote the statement while maintaining the confidentiality of the source. Some sources will try to negotiate the terms of art in “background” attribution — for example, a State Department official may ask to be identified as “an administration official.” We should try to put the reader’s interest first. In a story about a fight between the Pentagon and the State Department, for example, quoting “an administration official” is useless to readers. Use good judgment and press for maximum revelation in attribution.
Deep background: This is a tricky category, to be avoided if possible. Information accepted on “deep background” can be included in the story but not attributed. That means there is no way to help readers understand where it is coming from, which is why we discourage the use of deep background. You can also use information received on deep background as the basis for further reporting.
Off the record: This is the trickiest of all, because so many people misuse the term. By the traditional definition, off-the-record information cannot be used for publication or in further reporting. But many sources, including some sophisticated officials, use the term when they really mean “not for attribution to me.” We must be very careful when dealing with sources who say they want to be “off the record.” If they mean “not for attribution to me,” we need to explain the difference, and discuss what the attribution will actually be. If they really mean off the record as the term is traditionally defined, then in most circumstances, we should avoid listening to such information at all. We do not want to be hamstrung by a source who tells us something that becomes unusable because it is provided on an off-the-record basis.
*A source may be willing to give us information for our guidance or to prompt further reporting, on the understanding that we will not use his or her comments as the basis for publication.
Quoting Our Sources & Sharing Information
Our objective in quoting people is to capture both their words and intended meaning accurately. That requires care in negotiating ground rules with sources. We do not allow sources to change the rules governing specific quotations after the fact. Once a quote is on the record, it remains there.
Sometimes, a source will agree to be interviewed only if we promise to read quotations back to the source before publication. We should not allow sources to change what was said in an original interview, although accuracy or the risk of losing an on-the-record quote from a crucial source may sometimes require it. A better and more acceptable alternative is to permit a source to add to a quotation and then explain that sequence to readers. If you find yourself in this gray area, consult your editor.
Some reporters share sections of stories with sources before publication, to ensure accuracy on technical points or to catch errors. A science writer, for instance, may read to a source a passage, or even much of a story, about a complex subject to make sure that it is accurate. But it is against our policy to share drafts of entire stories with outside sources prior to publication, except with the permission — which will be granted extremely rarely — of the executive or managing editors.
In negotiating terms of engagement with a source, reporters and editors should be prepared for everything they say or write, in any medium, on the telephone or in person, to become public. They should make no promises, agree to no compromises and offer no concessions that aren’t compatible with this policy and The Daily Grinds’s standards. Clarity and straightforwardness in our communications with sources is essential.
Expert Sources
We quote a lot of people in RealTech Magazine. We’re always interviewing people on the street, and we seem to depend ever more on “experts” to provide context for stories, make interpretive points or offer judgments about subjects we are covering. This is a healthy trend. But it is important to think about who we are quoting, either for citizen reaction or for expert guidance.
We must strive always to get a rich variety of voices into our work. This means avoiding dependence on the same academics or public figures for reactions to stories. We all must look for new specialists — especially women, younger people, people of color, unconventional thinkers and people who aren’t routinely quoted by us and other media outlets, but who constitute a large part of our readership, and of the general population. This won’t happen unless we make an effort. Reporters need to expand their universe of sources.
Similarly, we need to remember to talk to a broad range of individuals who are affected by the events we cover. When we write about a new school board policy, we should talk to students, teachers and parents about its impact. When we cover a company’s sale or move, we should hear from affected employees. The voices of ordinary citizens of all ages should be a regular part of our journalism — more than they have been in the past.