Attribution Policy

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

This policy states how The Massachusetts Times credits the work of others. We published generous terms for those who quote us; this page is us holding ourselves to the same law, facing outward. Every sentence here is kept today.

1. The Principle

1.1. Credit is the currency of this craft, and we pay it in full. Another's original reporting, when we rely on it, is credited by name and by link — not alluded to, not laundered into "reports say," not absorbed.

1.2. We ask the world to attribute us under our Citation and Quotation Terms; we extend to every other newsroom exactly what we ask.

2. What Earns Credit

2.1. Original reporting: the outlet that established a fact we rely on, and the outlet that first reported a story we take up.

2.2. Original analysis and data: a finding, a calculation, a dataset built by someone else's work is credited to that work.

2.3. Documents and images obtained by others' effort are credited to the obtainer as well as the source, where the two differ.

2.4. An idea traceable to a source is credited like a fact. Inspiration has an address more often than writers admit, and we write the address down.

3. The Form

3.1. Name and link, at the point of reliance — in the body of the work where the borrowed fact appears, not stranded at the foot of the page.

3.2. The link points to the original work itself, not to a homepage near it. Where the medium carries no links, the outlet is named in the sentence.

3.3. "First reported by" means first reported by, and we use those words. When we later confirm the story independently, the confirmation is ours and the credit is still theirs — our verification adds to the record; it does not erase who got there first.

4. Aggregation

4.1. A work built on others' reporting says so plainly, from its opening, and is never dressed as our own gathering — the Journalism Policy forbids the costume and this policy forbids the act.

4.2. Aggregation at this publication must add something: our own verification under the Verification Policy, new reporting, or analysis that earns the page. We do not operate a rewrite desk whose product is other people's work with the serial numbers filed off.

4.3. The substitution line our Citation and Quotation Terms and Machine Terms draw against others binds us outward: we do not serve another outlet's substance so completely that their readers never need them. What we call theft when aimed at our record, we call theft when aimed at anyone's.

5. Fidelity Outward

5.1. When we quote another publication or person, the fidelity rules of our Citation and Quotation Terms govern us: verbatim means verbatim, omissions are marked, context travels with the passage, and no quotation is turned against its own meaning.

5.2. Where an outlet states its own preferred credit form, we observe it when reasonable. Courtesy costs a clause.

6. Wire and Licensed Material

6.1. Material appearing in our pages under license carries the credit its instrument requires, as our Licensing and Reprint Terms require of those who license from us. A licensed work is never silently rebranded as staff work.

6.2. Corrections issued by a licensor for material we carry are applied under our Correction Terms — the correction chases the error through our pages too.

7. Failures of Credit

7.1. A missed or defective credit is a defect in the work: it is repaired under the Correction Terms, with the credit restored on the work, and a substantive miss — original reporting absorbed without its name — is entered in the public corrections ledger like any other substantive correction.

7.2. A credit dispute from another outlet is received through the same door as every record dispute, at massachusettstimes.us/corrections, and answered with reasons.

8. The Record of This Policy

8.1. This policy is kept in dated versions at its address, so the credit standard governing any work can always be checked against the work's date.

This policy is one of the Policies this publication keeps.