Contact

Reaching the editorial and reference team at Journalism Authority connects researchers, journalists, educators, and members of the public with the staff responsible for maintaining the site's reference content on press law, newsroom practice, ethics codes, and media regulation. This page explains how to direct inquiries, what geographic scope the resource covers, what information to include in any message, and what response timelines are realistic.

How to reach this office

Journalism Authority operates as a national reference resource on journalism practice, press law, and media standards in the United States. Inquiries are accepted through the contact form published on this domain. The editorial team reviews submissions related to factual accuracy, source attribution, coverage gaps, and questions about documented standards — including frameworks maintained by organizations such as the Society of Professional Journalists, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and federal statutes governing press access, including the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. § 552).

Three distinct inquiry tracks exist, and routing to the correct one accelerates handling:

1. Editorial corrections — Questions about factual accuracy, outdated citations, or errors in legal summaries published across the site's reference pages.
2. Source attribution and licensing — Questions about how material is cited, which public documents underpin specific claims, or how statutory and regulatory references are applied.
3. Content gap requests — Suggestions for topics not yet covered, including emerging regulatory developments, state-level shield law changes, or newly issued journalism ethics guidance from named professional bodies.

General correspondence not fitting one of those tracks is also accepted but may receive a longer review cycle.

Service area covered

The site's reference scope is the contiguous United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and U.S. territories insofar as federal press law — the First Amendment, the Freedom of Information Act, and federal court jurisdiction over defamation and shield law disputes — applies to them. State-specific content covers all 50 states, with particular depth on jurisdictions that have enacted formal shield law statutes or where notable press freedom litigation has produced documented precedent.

Content does not extend to foreign media law systems, international regulatory bodies, or comparative press freedom frameworks outside the United States. For international press freedom analysis, organizations such as Freedom House and Reporters Without Borders maintain authoritative country-level assessments that fall outside this site's scope.

The editorial team does not serve as legal counsel and does not evaluate individual journalists' legal situations. Questions requiring professional legal advice should be directed to a licensed attorney or to organizations such as the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which operates a 24-hour legal defense hotline for working journalists.

What to include in your message

Clear, complete submissions receive faster substantive responses. The following structure covers the minimum information needed to route and process an inquiry:

1. Inquiry type — State whether the message is an editorial correction, a source attribution question, a content gap request, or general correspondence.
2. Page reference — Provide the exact page title or URL slug where the issue appears. The site covers more than 40 reference topics, and a precise page reference prevents misdirection.
3. Specific claim or passage — Quote or describe the specific sentence, statistic, or section in question. Corrections cannot be evaluated against a page in the abstract.
4. Supporting documentation — For factual corrections, identify the named public source that contradicts or updates the published content — for example, a specific statutory citation, a named agency report, or a published ethics code revision. Corrections sourced only to anonymous accounts or undocumented claims cannot be actioned.
5. Contact information — Provide an email address at which a response can be received. Submissions without return contact details are logged but cannot receive replies.

Submissions related to libel and defamation law for journalists or shield laws for journalists that involve a specific legal dispute should not include confidential case details, as this site's team does not hold attorney-client privilege and cannot treat such information as protected.

Response expectations

The editorial team operates on a 5-business-day review cycle for editorial corrections submitted with complete documentation. Corrections that require cross-referencing statutory language — for example, changes to state public records statutes or updates to Freedom of Information Act procedural rules — may extend to 10 business days to allow verification against primary sources.

Content gap requests are logged in an editorial queue. Not all requested topics result in published pages; prioritization follows demonstrated regulatory relevance, the availability of verifiable named public sources, and alignment with the site's national scope.

Source attribution inquiries receive a response identifying the primary public document, statute, or named organization from which a given claim derives. Where a published page has relied on a source that has since been revised — for example, an updated SPJ Ethics Code revision or a new circuit court ruling on reporter's privilege — the correction cycle applies.

Messages submitted without the minimum information described above receive an automated acknowledgment and a follow-up request for the missing details. The 5-business-day clock begins from the date a complete submission is received, not the date of the initial contact.

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