Editorial independence policy

Charlottesville Tomorrow has a standard for editorial independence that is reinforced by our membership in the Institute for Nonprofit News. In short, we operate through contributions from the communities we serve, foundations and sponsors, but those donors do not have influence on our reporting any more than other members of our community.

We accept — and require — gifts, grants and sponsorships from individuals and organizations for the general support of our activities. Our editorial decisions are driven by listening to our community about what they want from local news and within the expertise of our newsroom. We know that one thing the communities we serve value is our editorial independence.

We maintain a firewall between news coverage decisions and all sources of revenue, including content that might be sponsored and labeled clearly. When we accept donations, sponsorships, grants or any kind of financial support, we do not imply endorsement or endorse donors, their products, services or opinions.

We cede no right of review or influence of editorial content.

We will accept anonymous donations for general support only if it is clear that decisions about how those donations are spent are made independently by our organization and are in compliance with INN’s Membership Standards. We are also members of Local Independent Online News Publishers, Online News Association and the Virginia Press Association.

Conflicts of Interest

We all live together in the communities we cover and are connected in many ways, through schools, employment, family and friends. Charlottesville Tomorrow does its best to prevent or be transparent about conflicts of interest in our reporting, particularly when reporters, editors or the organization have financial interests in coverage areas. We are part of this community and encourage our staff and contributors to be involved in the causes and organizations they care about; our commitment to readers is that we will disclose that involvement when it is directly relevant to the reporting.

Many people support our work with small and large donations; we do not disclose in articles who is and isn’t a financial supporter unless they give more than $4,999 in the previous 12 months. You can see a list of our supporters here.

Our commitment to our community

As a nonprofit news organization, we realize that the failure of local media, now and historically, has not just been about the business model. Too often, local news in small markets have failed communities of color and many other marginalized communities. We could go on contextualizing that statement, but will hope you follow that logic at face value.

When Charlottesville Tomorrow’s board changed its mission in 2018, we refocused on serving the whole community. We also adopted the values of truth, community and equity. Our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion as a news organization rests on making sure Charlottesville Tomorrow is inclusive to all of our staff and to all of our readers, and that we compensate staff and contributors fairly to allow people from all backgrounds to take part in telling the stories of central Virginia.

Equity in news is a concept still being defined by news organizations all over the world, but it nearly always involves a framework in which we develop processes that work against implicit biases, both internally and in our coverage areas. In the past, many journalists believed that just being objective and relentless in their pursuit of truth was enough to achieve fair outcomes. But they also mostly worked in newsrooms that were not diverse enough and prioritized, intentionally or not, white audiences. To ensure that a newsroom functions with equity as a goal amongst a diverse group of journalists serving an even more diverse audience, you really have to work hard to open up and dig deep.

At the most basic level, as a reporter you have to realize that it is much harder for a working single mother to show up at a meeting or call a reporter about an issue than for a developer’s lawyer. For every story we report, we ask who is most affected by the decisions or systems we are covering, who has privileged access to influencing those decisions and systems and whose voices are we including and magnifying? At an organizational level, we understand how we play in the digital distribution marketplace, often controlled by the proprietary algorithms of Google and Facebook, and work to make the news more directly accessible.

Since 2018, we have been asked many times in many ways if our focus on equity — racial equity, in particular — means that we only care about “social justice” or if we have a “woke agenda.”

Here’s our response: We know that our organization’s work looks different than what some people in our community might be used to. This is not a reflection of a political agenda, it is part of how we are trying to shift what journalism can do for more people in our community. We are committed to our values of community, truth and equity and to centering those who are most affected by pressing issues. We believe that the control of local media is a frontline conversation of racial justice. And we hope you will hold us accountable and join us in creating a community-centered news organization that uses the best practices of journalism to help us build the communities we want for ourselves and our children.

How we use (and don’t use) technology and artificial intelligence

At Charlottesville Tomorrow, our journalism begins and ends with humans. We use technology and AI tools to work more efficiently and to build better products for our community — but every story we publish is reported, written and edited by our editorial team. The same standards of editorial independence and privacy that we use broadly applies to new technologies. We recognize that these technologies come with their own biases and inaccuracies and design our editorial and production process to protect our equity-focused mission.

Like many of you, we use software every day that is integrating AI tools. Some tools Charlottesville Tomorrow uses for design and production have AI features built in. We do our best to provide as much transparency as possible about how we use these new features, and will continue to adhere to our editorial independence and privacy policies as new technology rolls out.

We do not use AI to:

• write or report stories. If a human didn’t report it and write it, we don’t publish it;
• generate photorealistic images representing real events or real people;
• make editorial decisions about what we cover or how we cover it;
• or serve as a primary source of information.

We might use AI to:

• transcribe interviews, with reporters and editors verifying all quotes and information, and making sure it is presented in context;
• summarize large documents or public records as a starting point for reporting;
• assist with research and background information, but our team always independently verifies anything we publish;
• support internal workflows like scheduling, drafting and data analysis;
• create conceptual graphics, such as illustrations. These will always be clearly labeled. Our standard: If a reasonable reader would want to know AI was involved, we tell you;
• or build new tools to help you access local news, such as searchable databases and resource guides.

Questions or concerns?

If you have a question about our editorial independence, contact us here.

The last update of this editorial independence policy was on July 31, 2026.

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Here’s a bit more about our values.