Governance
Disclosures last updated 2026-10-11.
The founder's interest
This project started with a personal experience. The founder has lived with the long-term effects of an old story in a student newspaper, and has asked for that coverage to be reconsidered. The project has no connection to that paper or its university.
That experience shaped the questions we ask. It shouldn't shape the answers, so a few rules apply:
- The founder never makes the final call on a disputed record about that newspaper, its university, or anyone else they're in a personal dispute with. Someone with no stake in the matter has to review it first.
- Until that review happens, the Atlas shows only sourced facts for those records, with no classification. The software won't publish one without the review on file.
- A student paper's editorial decisions are kept separate from its university's.
- The list of newsrooms is never used to pressure or retaliate against anyone.
Who runs it
Founder-led administration during initial development. This is not independent board oversight.
Advisers
There are no advisers yet. We're looking for people who know journalism ethics, student press freedom and research methods. Advisers are named only if they agree, and advising doesn't mean agreeing with everything we publish.
Funding
We haven't published a funding statement yet; it will appear here.
We won't take money with conditions on what we find, and nobody can pay to change a record or be left out of the research. The research, the model policy and the methodology stay free for the newsrooms we study. Before accepting any significant outside funding, we will publish the amount above which donors are named.
Research and advocacy
We do take a position: we think requests about old stories deserve a clear, published process and a decision on their own facts. To keep that from leaking into the research, each paper separates what the evidence shows, what we think it means, and what we recommend. The Atlas doesn't rate anyone, and a newsroom that never de-indexes is recorded the same way as one that does.
Corrections and challenges
Anyone can challenge a fact or a classification. We aim to reply within five business days and finish a first review within fifteen. Changes show up in the record's history and in thecorrections log; we don't edit past findings without saying so.
Founding documents
- Editorial Independence and Institutional Integrity Charter (proposed v1.0)
- Research Methodology and Institutional Classification Standards (proposed v1.0)
- The Archive Ethics Model Policy (proposed v1.0)