Editorial Policy

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

This policy states how The Massachusetts Times separates news from opinion, how each is marked, and whose voice each one carries. Every sentence here is kept today.

1. The Separation

1.1. News reports. Opinion argues. The Massachusetts Times produces, labels, and presents them as distinct classes of work, and no work is both.

1.2. The separation runs in both directions: the editorial line does not direct news coverage, and news coverage does not answer to the editorial line. The evidence governs one; judgment, argued in the open, governs the other.

2. The Classes and Their Labels

2.1. News carries no class label, because it is the default register of this publication, governed by the Verification Policy and the Journalism Policy.

2.2. Editorial is the institution's own position, carried by the masthead and labeled Editorial.

2.3. Opinion is a named writer's position, labeled Opinion, with the writer's identity and any relevant interest stated under the Conflicts of Interest Policy.

2.4. Analysis is interpretation bound to evidence — it explains, weighs, and concludes, but does not advocate — and is labeled Analysis.

2.5. Letters are readers' voices, governed by the Letters provisions of the Contributor Terms, and labeled as letters.

3. The Label Travels

3.1. A class label is part of the work. It appears on the work, in the archive under the Archive and Permanence Terms, in syndication and licensed copies under the Licensing and Reprint Terms, and in machine lanes under the Machine Terms' provenance duties.

3.2. A work is never promoted, excerpted, or syndicated in a dress that hides its class. Opinion presented as news, anywhere we control the presentation, is a defect and is corrected as one.

4. The News Side

4.1. A news work asserts what the evidence sustains and attributes judgments to those who hold them, by name wherever the Source Terms allow.

4.2. News carries no advocacy, no endorsement, and no institutional position. Where a news work must characterize, the characterization is the evidence's, shown, not the writer's, declared.

5. Editorials

5.1. An editorial speaks for the masthead and says so. It is argued from facts that survive the Verification Policy, and its facts are correctable under the Correction Terms exactly as news facts are.

5.2. No advertiser, member, licensee, or owner interest purchases, vetoes, or edits an editorial position. The influence firewall in the Subscription Terms is conduct here, not just commerce.

6. Endorsements

6.1. The Massachusetts Times does not endorse candidates for public office.

6.2. The reason is stated plainly: this publication's product is the record, and a masthead that picks contestants invites every reader to re-audit its news pages for the thumb on the scale. We decline the practice rather than manage the suspicion.

6.3. This rule does not silence the editorial page on questions of policy, conduct in office, or ballot measures, where positions are taken under Section 5 and labeled under Section 2.

7. Opinion Standards

7.1. Opinion is free in its judgments and bound in its facts. A factual claim in an opinion work meets the same verification standard, and the same correction machinery, as a claim anywhere else in the publication.

7.2. Opinion writers argue their own view. We publish opinion we dispute; we do not publish facts that are false, in any class, under any label.

8. Accountability

8.1. The masthead answers for the editorial line and for the integrity of the separation. Disputes about labeling or the line run through the Correction Terms and, beyond them, the Accountability Policy.

8.2. This policy is kept in dated versions at its address, so what governed the line on any given day can always be checked.

This policy is one of the Policies this publication keeps.