JMTN Confidentiality Policies

Like any news organization, JMTN needs to have policies in place to protect the legitimacy and continued availability of our reporting. To that end, we have established the following confidentiality policies. Pursuant to our goal of providing deep-dives into matters of public interest, we aim to provide full disclosure and availability of all of the sources and information we gather when writing a story, subject to the following exceptions.

1. JMTN will honor all confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements it is a party to. While we aim to provide full access to our information, there are certain circumstances where our access to a specific piece of information cannot be obtained absent some form of confidentiality or non-disclosure agreement. In such cases we will attempt to write the story without the use of those sources (provided it does not diminish the quality of the story), or negotiate with the other party to modify the agreement or be released from it. If we are not able to do this, we will use our sources, and the information they provide, in a way that respects the aforementioned agreements. In any event, we fully comply with those agreements.
2. Absent any of the following circumstances, JMTN will not honor "take-down" requests.
1. In our belief, imminent physical harm will occur as a result of our refusal to remove information.
2. A valid copyright claim is alleged against a specific piece of content we provide on our website. This does not preclude us from linking to copyrighted information on another entity's website, or publishing content in compliance with free-use exceptions.
3. A valid court-issued injunction or other order is presented to us. In this case we will honor the order and remove the content as required. However, our removal of the content does not preclude us from challenging the order.
4. We are made aware of a factual error in our reporting. In such a case, we will edit the content to correct this error, and will note in the story the circumstances surrounding the edit. If this is not possible (for example, the entire story is predicated on a false piece of information), we will retract the story.
5. Other circumstances that require us to, or lead us to believe it is in our best interest to, remove information.
3. JMTN will respect the safety and privacy of individuals. Unless materially relevant to a story, JMTN will not publish the private information (home address, phone number, habits, vehicle information, etc.) of any individual. In the event that this information is materially relevant to a story, JMTN will determine whether or not disclosure of this information would be detrimental to the safety or privacy of the individual. In any event, we will reach out to the individual prior to publishing the story to ensure that they have the opportunity to provide us with any information relevant to our making this decision. This does not apply to information that has otherwise been released by the individual (for example information that is available on their website, or a comment they made in a public forum).