Editorial Standards
How We Report, and How We Correct
Criollo News is independent journalism for the Dominican diaspora. These are the rules we hold ourselves to — publicly, so you can hold us to them too.
We cover a community that has spent a long time being reported on carelessly — names misspelled, numbers inflated, motives assumed. The standards below exist because getting it right matters more to us than getting it first.
How we source
We work from primary records wherever they exist. A regulator filing, a fiscal report or a budget-execution record outranks a press release; an official statement outranks a secondhand summary. When we cite a figure, we say which entity published it, what period it covers, and what it actually measures.
Every reported story carries a numbered source list. If you want to check our work, you should be able to — that's the point of publishing the list.
🪜 Our claim ladder
Before publication, every significant factual claim is sorted into one of three buckets: publish (the record supports it plainly), qualify (it's true with a stated limit — a projection, an official target, a single year or entity), or hold (the record doesn't support it yet, so we don't print it). When we can't establish something, we say we couldn't establish it rather than implying it.
➕ We don't manufacture totals
We don't add figures across different entities, periods or accounting treatments to produce a bigger number. If a consolidated total doesn't exist in the record, we describe the gap precisely instead of filling it with arithmetic.
🌐 Bilingual parity
Every issue publishes in English and Spanish. Numbers, dates, attributions and qualifiers must match across both languages — a claim is never softer or stronger in one edition than the other.
Bylines and opinion
Reported stories carry the byline Criollo News Team. Sin Filtro is a signed opinion column written by our founding editor, Stevent Cleto, and is labeled as commentary — it argues a position, and it is not neutral reporting. We keep that line visible on purpose. Criollo News is not aligned with any political party, and naming a politician in commentary is never an endorsement of them or their opponents.
Corrections policy
We will make mistakes. When we do, we fix them openly rather than quietly.
If you believe something we published is inaccurate, email news@criollonews.com with the subject line "Correction request." Tell us the issue or guide, the specific passage, and — if you have it — the source you believe is correct. A person reads every one of these.
What happens next: we aim to acknowledge correction requests within two business days. If we confirm an error of fact, we fix it promptly and append a dated correction note to the piece explaining what was wrong and what changed. We do not silently edit a published fact. Typos, broken links and formatting fixes are corrected without a note. If we determine the piece was accurate, we'll tell you why.
Significant corrections are also noted in the following week's issue, so the audience that read the error sees the fix.
Our disclosure on AI
We think you deserve a straight answer about this rather than boilerplate.
AI tools assist our research, translation and drafting. They do not replace human reporting, verification or judgment. In practice that means AI may be used to help gather and organize source material, prepare and check the English–Spanish translation, and produce working drafts. It is a tool in the process, the way a search engine or a spellchecker is.
What does not change: every factual claim is verified by a human against a primary source, every figure is traced to the entity that published it, and a human editor reviews and signs off on every piece before it goes out. Our source lists are checked by hand. We do not publish AI-generated reporting that no person has verified, we do not fabricate quotes, and we do not generate images that depict real news events or real people.
Responsibility for everything published here is human and it is ours. If something is wrong, that's on us, not on a tool.
Independence and funding
Criollo News is independent and free to read — no paywall, no subscription tier. We do not accept payment to cover a story, to omit one, or to shade coverage. If a piece ever involves a commercial relationship, a partnership or a conflict of interest, we will disclose it in that piece. Any advertising or sponsorship will be clearly labeled and kept separate from editorial decisions.
Reach an editor
Corrections, story tips, questions about our methods, or a record you think we should be reading: news@criollonews.com. We read everything, even when we can't reply to all of it.
Last updated: July 20, 2026. We'll revise this page as our practices change, and note material changes here.