Policies

Submissions Policy

Comment policy

The Editorial Board, which is the decision-making and policy-setting body of The Talon, formed this policy to ensure that The Talon’s readers are encouraging an honest and informative environment. As a school newspaper, it’s our duty to make sure that we’re an open forum where all respectful opinions can be expressed securely and safely. The Talon wants to ensure that all individuals can responsibly post replies to articles.

All feedback about lahstalon.org is welcome at [email protected].

Why do you moderate comments?

We welcome thoughtful feedback and thoughts about posts on lahstalon.org. To make sure that comments reflect a variety of opinions and intellectual arguments, it’s necessary to weed out inappropriate comments from legitimate ones. By moderating comments before they’re posted, we hope we can foster educational discussion and enhance user experience.

What can’t I say?

Comments that contain unwarranted personal attacks on non-public figures, personal information, obscenities, libel, slurs or slander are prohibited and will not be posted. Should a comment be incomprehensible to our editors, abusive, derogatory or discriminatory in any way, or contain spam or advertisement content, it will not be published.

What about criticisms of The Talon or its staff?

We welcome all criticisms of The Talon itself to be submitted via email to [email protected]. Since comments are meant to create discussion about the topic or content of an article, we would greatly appreciate any criticisms of The Talon to be sent through email.

As writers are not considered public figures, no personal attacks may be made on the writer or editor of any article. Criticisms about writers may be sent via email to [email protected].

Is it okay to correct an article?

Of course. We welcome any information you’d like to give or corrections on our reporting. Any comments containing corrections to the article or to the content will not be posted, but will be thoroughly researched for accuracy accordingly. Corrections can also be sent to [email protected]. The article will be corrected as necessary.

Website comment policy

In order to maintain a polite environment and enhance discussion, The Talon will review all comments prior to publication on the site. If any part of your comment does not uphold our standards, it will not be posted. The Talon will not edit your comment. Commenters must verify their email address with our web hosting provider to be approved.

Should I use my real name?

Please do. Using your real name will not only show other readers that you genuinely care about a topic but will also promote respect on our site.

Will you edit comments?

No. A comment is either approved or unapproved, no matter if only one part does not follow the standards of publication. We may fix spelling, punctuation or grammar should we wish to run your comment in an article.

Social media comment policy

The Talon does not vet comments on our social media accounts but if any part of your comment violates our standards, we will delete it.

Why do you delete comments?

We welcome thoughtful feedback and thoughts about posts on our Instagram. We delete comments that we find to be inappropriate. We encourage discussion in the comments and will not delete them unless necessary.

Letter to the Editor Policy

The Talon welcomes letters to the editor. E-mail letters to [email protected] or drop them off in room 410 or the box in the attendance office. If you have any questions, send an e-mail.
In the case of spelling or grammatical errors, obscenities, libelous or personal attacks, a letter may be edited or not run. Letters must be signed, but a name may be withheld upon request. Letters may be published online, in print or both.

Talon’s AI Policy

Why are these policies being set?

AI has the tendency to hallucinate in ways that can harm the journalistic integrity and accuracy of The Talon. Generative AI can take from copyrighted material in ways that are potentially infringement. The substantial use of AI by a newspaper can erode trust in the paper; simultaneously, AI has the power to speed up our work by automating tedious activities. This policy is designed to encourage positive use of AI while discouraging negative use. 

What is the general policy?

The Talon will not use AI to generate writing. All AI content must be overseen by humans and all use of AI must be approved before use. AI is never the final editor of anything that we publish. AI should never be used to generate facts or fact-check information. All use of generative AI should be disclosed. If a piece of information included in an article due to AI generation is found to be false, misattributed, etc., the author(s) of the article will be held responsible as if they wrote the material. 

What are the allowed uses of AI?

Transcribing audio: AI can be used to summarize or transcribe recorded interviews, which does not have to be disclosed in our reporting. However, humans must review the audio to ensure accurate transcription. If an unfaithful transcription is used, the author(s) of the article will be held responsible as if they wrote the material.

Translation: Final translated text must be edited by a human who is fluent in all involved languages. AI translation is allowed for initial understanding, but we’re encouraged to have humans fully translate text. Use of AI translation must be disclosed in the article (e.g. “Initial translation was done by [AI platform: Google Translate]. The translation was edited/reviewed/verified by [human translator]”).

Editing: AI [e.g. Grammarly (not Grammarly AI), Murrow] may be used for light copy-editing such as spelling and grammar-checking, given that a human is still the final editor of the piece. This does not need to be disclosed. Substantial edits (e.g. shortening/lengthening an article) must be made by humans. 

Audio: Generic text-to-speech AI voices can be used when human narration is impossible (i.e. an anonymous source doesn’t want their voice to be published, and voice modulation/other tactics aren’t possible). Disclosure rules apply. AI will not be used to replicate the voice of any person. 

Media: We will not use AI-generated media (images, videos, etc.), and even in exceptional circumstances, we will never publish any AI images that could easily pass for photographs of real-world events. Photo editing tools that utilize AI (e.g. AI Denoise in Lightroom) are allowed as long as they don’t change any substantial facts or implications communicated by the photo (e.g. changing the lighting to make it look like a different time of day, garbling text in a corner of the photo). 

Are there exceptions?

Exceptions to these rules can be made in rare circumstances, such as using GenAI content when writing an article about generative AI. Even if exceptions are made, all use must be clearly disclosed. 

Future-proofing: This is a living document, and it will change as the AI landscape changes. All feedback about The Talon is welcome at [email protected].