Policies

Mission Statement 

The Signal, the student-run publication of The College of New Jersey is dedicated to serving the following mission: 

• To serve and seek the truth in its relevance to the campus community and all those who are affected by the College; to convey pressing information related to the College to the student body; to put forth accurate, timely, high-quality content.
• To provide hands-on experience for students in the areas of journalism, multimedia, marketing, teamwork, editing, and management of a news organization; to foster a collaborative, fun environment with legitimate expectations.

Code of Ethics

• The Signal adheres to the Society of Professional Journalists’ code of ethics — all members of The Signal will seek and report the truth, maintain transparency to the staff and community, act independently in all editorial decisions, minimize harm to the community and our readership, and be accountable to the community. 

Editing & Corrections Policy

• Every published article at The Signal will be edited for AP Style, accuracy, and clarity by a section editor, managing editor, and editor-in-chief; writers will be informed of the nature of any edits made through specified notations; writers are encouraged to reach out to their
  immediate section editor or their managing editor to discuss any edits made to their articles.
• Anytime a Signal staff member becomes aware of a published mistake, he or she should report it immediately to their section editor and managing editor; the managing editors and editor-in-chief will review the mistake and determine if a correction or clarification is needed; if a correction or clarification is necessary, the correction will be made, the writer will be notified and a notification will be posted to the
  bottom of the article in question. 

Fabrication and Plagiarism Policy

• Lifted or fabricated content, captions, or phrases will not be tolerated under any circumstance at The Signal; fabrication or plagiarism will be grounds for removal from the staff of The Signal. 

Guest Opinion Policy

• Any student of the College can publish a guest opinion piece through The Signal. Opinions made within a guest opinion piece are not reflective of the editorial board of The Signal and should be regarded as such. 

• To submit a guest opinion article, email signal@tcnj.edu.

• Every guest opinion article submitted must include the writer’s full name to ensure credibility. 

• Anonymous pieces will be considered on a case-by-case basis and will be determined by the editorial board for safety or other specific reasons.

• The Signal maintains the right to edit submitted guest opinion pieces in order to fit the style of The Signal and follow the AP Style guidelines. The Signal will not change the tone or content of the article, but may edit the piece to fit the organization’s writing style.

Letter to the Editor Policy

• The Signal accepts letters to the editor from any member of the greater TCNJ community. Please send submissions to signal@tcnj.edu. 

• The Signal will review all submissions before publication and reserves the right to decide whether or not to publish a letter. 

• Letters that address current issues regarding TCNJ, or national or international trends or topics will be prioritized.

Source Policy

• Every student source included in an article will provide their full name, major, and grade level; non-student sources will provide their full name and job title.
• Anonymous sources will only be used in a situation — as determined by the managing editors and editor-in-chief — where the inclusion of the source’s name could negatively impact his or her health/safety/job.
• In the majority of situations, anonymous sources will not be used. 

Sponsored Content Policy

• As The Signal is a student-run organization, the newspaper does not accept articles written by individuals outside of the College community — this includes sponsored content. An exception to this is a letter to the editor. If a company would like to advertise with us, please check out our advertisement rates.

Pictorial Policy

• The Signal will only publish pictures that are taken by members of the Signal’s staff, retrieved from a subscription service or pictures that the Signal is granted explicit written permission to publish; the credit and caption of all pictures will be denoted as such to provide proper attribution.

Social media Policy

• The Signal’s Code of Ethics extends to the use of social media platforms by any staff members of the organization; The Signal encourages its staff members to make use of social media but to do so responsibly and respectfully at all times. 

Community Guidelines for tcnjsignalnews.com

• All comments, except those determined by the management staff at the Signal to be spam or harmful to the community, will be approved to be posted to the website. 

All policies have been agreed upon by the Signal Editorial Board.