Editorial

We choose stories for their consequence, relevance, timeliness or interest to our readers across Turtle Island.

Our coverage includes Arts, Books, Business, Education, Fashion, Film & TV, Health, Land, Language, Legal, Life, Media, Music, Politics, Pop Culture, Powwow, Sports and Tech.

Our curiosity is rooted in people and place. It grows from the conversations, questions and experiences that animate Indigenous public life. A person’s work, a community’s experience or a question raised by readers can draw our attention before we know where the story will lead.

News follows developments as they happen. Documentary gives sustained attention to people, places and experiences. These approaches can meet in the same story; its subject determines the form and pace.

Our documentary work takes a seven-generation view: capturing and preserving stories so that future generations can return to the people, places and experiences of today. Our attention includes what matters now and what deserves to be remembered.

Our civic approach concerns how people live together: how they create, govern, work, disagree and build community. It includes Indigenous Nations’ own governments and institutions, and the wider societies in which Indigenous people live.

Public life reaches across News, Culture and Entertainment. An artist’s work, a community gathering or a sporting achievement can deserve attention alongside a public decision. We ask how people, culture and place shape what is happening, without making identity explain every detail of someone’s life.

Our focus on public life comes with respect for privacy and for knowledge and practices that are not intended for public sharing. Material circulating online is not, by that fact alone, appropriate for republication.

Access to an event, an interview or an image does not settle every question about its use. We consider the purpose of the use, the basis for publication, restrictions and relevant cultural protocols before publishing. We distinguish a source’s willingness to speak with us from permission to publish private information or knowledge they are not entitled to share.

We want people to be themselves, after all. You Belong Here is an invitation to arrive as you are, without being asked to perform your Indigeneity. Our work makes room for people to explore contemporary life without prescribing how an Indigenous person must behave, act or think.

People speak from distinct histories, communities and circumstances. Differences and contradictions may appear across our stories. We aim to explain them, rather than make one person’s experience stand for everyone or turn a shared space into a requirement to agree.

IND does not decide citizenship for Indigenous Nations or set one definition of Indigenous belonging. We respect Nations and communities, report independently on their leaders, institutions and public decisions, and examine factual claims relevant to a story. A person’s self-description, a reported affiliation and a documented citizenship decision are different kinds of statements; we identify which the reporting relies on.

We distinguish established facts from a source’s account, interpretation and what remains uncertain. We identify the reporting and creative work of others when we rely on it. An interview records what someone says and understands; factual claims within it still require verification.

We seek relevant perspectives and examine the evidence supporting them. Understanding a person’s position does not require endorsing it or giving unsupported claims equal weight. Empathy helps us understand how experience and environment shape a view; it does not settle whether a claim is accurate.

Headlines, captions, images and excerpts carry meaning too. They should preserve the context needed to understand the work.

Our website and social channels carry complete IND editions, built for the platform on which they appear. Each edition carries the same responsibility for accuracy, attribution and care.

Our institutional bylines are IND News, IND Culture and IND Entertainment. These signatures reflect an editorial choice: attention belongs to the people and stories being documented. The institution stands behind the work rather than making the editor’s personality its centre.

IND and its Editor-in-Chief take responsibility for every story carrying an institutional byline. An institutional signature does not imply that multiple people wrote the story or that all Indigenous peoples endorse it.

Named bylines credit actual individual authorship, including work by editors and guest contributors. They can appear across all three sections. A named byline does not by itself indicate opinion; Editorials are identified as such, carry a named author and require the Editor-in-Chief’s approval. IND remains accountable for all the work it publishes.

The displayed byline, attribution to sources and individual creative credits serve different purposes. An institutional signature does not replace credit for reporting, photography, film, illustration or other work used in a story.

IND is developing opportunities for partners to support productions across all three divisions through presentorship, commissions and sponsorship. Future publishing partnerships are planned within IND Culture and IND Entertainment. We distinguish paid work from independently selected reporting so readers can understand the relationship behind it.

How a story was made, its editorial or promotional purpose, and how it was funded are separate questions. Original reporting can receive financial support, and independent reporting can draw on material created by others. We assess the use of third-party material in the context of the finished work.

Paid contributions are always disclosed. For paid articles, disclosure appears at the beginning.

IND News reporting is selected and guided by editorial judgment. Commercial relationships do not give partners control over its assignments, sourcing, framing, timing or corrections.

We correct factual errors and explain material corrections on the affected work. When we get a fact or a credit wrong, we should be clear about the error and what changed, and offer a sincere apology where appropriate. We also review wording, images or omissions that may leave a materially misleading impression. Our responsibility includes how a story is presented.

Disagreement alone does not establish an error. Readers may offer additional evidence, a response or a story proposal for editorial consideration; submission does not guarantee publication. A factual complaint is reviewed on its merits without requiring the reader to write a counter-story.

We reply to concerns within 48 hours.

Reader engagement helps the publication notice what it has missed and understand experiences beyond any one editor’s knowledge. IND and its Editor-in-Chief remain responsible for the resulting editorial decisions.

Story ideas, tips and reader submissions: [email protected]. Tell us about a person, development, question or idea that may deserve a closer look.

Concerns about IND’s work: [email protected]. Use this address for factual errors, credits, consent, image rights or other standards concerns about what IND has published.