Accountability Policy

The Massachusetts Times · Published by The Massachusetts Times Company · massachusettstimes.us/policies/accountability · Effective October 16, 2026

This policy states who answers for The Massachusetts Times, to whom, and by what path. Accountability here is a route with doors, not a sentiment with adjectives. Every sentence here is kept today.

1. The Principle

1.1. The masthead answers for everything published under it — every work, every page, every hand and every system that touched it. Accountability is never outsourced downward to a contributor, sideways to a vendor, or into the machinery, as the Automation Policy and the Contributor Terms both require.

1.2. Every grievance has a door, every door has an answer, and every answer carries its reasons. We do not answer with silence anywhere in this ladder.

2. The Ladder

2.1. First rung — the work. A dispute about what we published goes to the corrections door at massachusettstimes.us/corrections, under the Correction Terms: one door, no form, no lawyer, an answer with reasons, and the public ledger.

2.2. Second rung — the publication. A grievance about conduct, policy, or anything beyond a single work goes through the publication's published contact channels, where the masthead answers it.

2.3. Third rung — above the masthead. If the publication's answer fails you, escalate past it: the estate's standards desk, reached through uspress.institute, holds every publication on this civil infrastructure to the library you are reading, and reviews the publication's answer rather than merely repeating it.

2.4. Beyond us — the open courts. The Dispute Terms stand behind the whole ladder: Massachusetts law, public courtrooms, no arbitration ambush, no gag. A grievance that climbed this ladder has already satisfied the knock-before-suit article.

3. What Each Rung Owes

3.1. An answer, with reasons, at the speed the matter's gravity demands — the Correction Terms' clock governs record disputes, and its principle governs everything else: the graver the claim, the faster the answer.

3.2. An honest outcome: what we did, what we declined, and why. An answer that resolves nothing but explains everything is still an answer; a brush-off is not.

4. Who May Climb

4.1. Anyone: readers, subjects of coverage, sources, contributors, other outlets, and people who have never read us. Standing on this ladder is universal, because accountability to only our fans would be marketing.

4.2. Climbing costs nothing and requires nothing — no account, no identity beyond what a reply needs, and never proof of any status.

5. What Accountability Is Not

5.1. It is not a heckler's veto. Volume, fury, and status move nothing here; evidence moves everything, as the Correction Terms state.

5.2. A matter answered on the evidence may be answered once more by reference to that answer; repetition without new evidence does not reopen it, and new evidence always does.

5.3. It is never answered with retaliation. A grievance costs the griever nothing: no access removed, no grant narrowed, no wall raised — the Access Terms forbid the publication's oldest cheap revenge.

6. Public Accountability

6.1. We hold ourselves accountable in public, in standing instruments anyone can audit: the corrections ledger at massachusettstimes.us/corrections, the record of demands kept under the Data Policy, the dated versions of every page in this library, and the masthead and company pages that name what answers for this publication.

6.2. The audit invitations in the Cookies and Data Policies are accountability too: we told you how to check us from your own browser, and a verified mismatch is treated as the defect it is.

7. The Answer Behind the Answers

7.1. Every rung of this ladder works because of one rule: the institution that publishes is the institution that answers. However this publication grows, whatever tools it commands, whoever contributes to its pages, the name at the top of the page is where accountability lives, undiluted.

8. The Record of This Policy

8.1. This policy is kept in dated versions at its address, so the ladder that stood behind any work can always be checked against the work's date.

This policy is one of the Policies this publication keeps.