Behind the Journalism: How The Times Works

The Times publishes hundreds of pieces of journalism every day. We apply ethical standards and rigorous reporting to every article, video, podcast, newsletter and interactive we produce. Here are some explanations of the policies and processes that define our journalism.

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Anonymous sources: Why does The Times use them?

“Reporters and editors have to be relentless and skeptical in handling anonymous sourcing. It should never be routine or casual.”

Phil Corbett, standards editor

“Speaking on the condition of anonymity …”

“Discussed the incident on the condition that they not be named …”

“According to people familiar with …”

You’ve undoubtedly seen these phrases in Times articles, but what exactly do they mean?

Our reporting is based on sources. They can be officials, witnesses, records — essentially anyone or anything that can offer information on a particular topic. When we don’t disclose a human source by name, that person is considered an anonymous source. Under our guidelines, these sources should be used only for information that we believe is newsworthy and credible, and that we are not able to report any other way.

But why does The Times shield the identity of some sources? We recognize that the use of anonymous sources is sometimes crucial to our journalistic mission. It can give readers genuine insight into the uses and abuses of power — in Washington, on Wall Street and beyond. In sensitive areas like national security reporting, it can be unavoidable. Sources sometimes risk their careers, their freedom and even their lives by talking to us.

  • How do they know the information?

  • What’s their motivation for telling us?

  • Have they proved reliable in the past?

  • Can we corroborate the information they provide?

Because using anonymous sources puts great strain on our most valuable asset: our readers’ trust, the reporter and at least one editor is required to know the identity of the source. A senior newsroom editor must also approve the use of the information the source provides.

How does The Times handle corrections?

“The Times’s primary responsibility is to give readers accurate information, and our readers trust us to do that. By acknowledging our mistakes quickly and transparently, we build on that fundamental trust.”

Rogene Jacquette, corrections editor

We recognize an ethical responsibility to correct all factual errors, large and small, promptly and in a prominent space. We encourage readers to reach out to us at nytnews@nytimes.com when they spot a possible mistake.

  • First, we determine if we made an error. We contact the reporters and editors involved and, if a correction is warranted, we adjust the article and add the correction.

  • Even when we catch a mistake mere seconds after publishing, we still acknowledge it with a correction. There is no five-second rule.

  • Corrections should appear in any and all editions (print and digital) or platforms (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook) that carried the error. We also correct mistakes in newsletters, in videos and on podcasts like “The Daily.”

  • For obvious typos, we correct the error without appending a correction.

During breaking news, there are times when incorrect information is part of the story and does not require a correction: A death toll may be reduced, the number of suspects may change or officials may correct an earlier statement. We typically explain these changes in the updating article and do not append a correction.

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Here’s how The Times is covering the Israel-Hamas war.

Two Palestinian journalists embrace each other and one is looking off to the side and appears to be crying. Both wear jackets with the words “press” printed on them.
Palestinian journalists mourn colleagues Saeed Al-Taweel and Muhammad Sobh, who were killed in October by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City.Credit...Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times

Reporting inside Gaza is extremely challenging right now. Israel has prevented journalists from entering the region except when accompanied by its military, and then only under certain conditions, while Egypt, along its border, is also blocking access. Communications have been limited, in part because of the Israeli siege of the enclave. Many Palestinian journalists in Gaza have been killed in airstrikes. And even before the war, Hamas restricted what reporters could cover in Gaza, limiting their movement, interrogating their sources and translators and expelling foreign reporters for work deemed objectionable.

The Times, along with other news organizations, has asked the governments of Israel and Egypt for direct access to Gaza because reporting on the ground is vital to understanding this crisis. Throughout the war, The Times has been working with journalists who were already in Gaza when the siege began. We have been interviewing residents and officials in Gaza by phone and using digital apps. We have asked people in the area to share their stories with us on video, which we then confirm are real. We also verify photos and social media posts using similar techniques, scrutinizing them to determine where and when they were taken or written and cross-checking with other sources, such as satellite imagery. We cross reference any information we gather with interviews with the U.N. and other international organizations, many of which have employees in different parts of Gaza.

In general, we try to avoid relying on a single source and we seek to include detailed information whenever possible.

How New York Times reporters avoid personal involvement in politics.

Our ethics guidelines state that journalists have no place on the playing fields of politics. Of course, staff members are entitled to vote, but they must do nothing that might raise questions about their professional neutrality or that of The Times.

  • Endorse candidates

  • Give money to, or raise money for, any political candidate or election cause

  • Seek public office

  • Wear campaign buttons

  • March or rally in support of public causes or movements

But just because our reporters and editors are not participating in political events, doesn’t mean they don’t care deeply about certain issues. That is why we urge them to be aware of their own biases and to consider how someone with an opposing view might think about the topics they are covering. Framing and characterizing all viewpoints with fairness and depth is central to our approach to reporting.

Our reputation for independence rests upon the public’s faith that we can carry out our work free from influence and overt bias.

How The Times covers extreme weather.

“Oftentimes reporters are the first people to arrive at a place after it has been hit. That is a difficult experience.”

Patricia Mazzei, Miami bureau chief

During extreme weather, and related events such as wildfires and floods, we move quickly to bring vital information to those who need it, sending reporters and visual journalists to the scene.

“Once the storm hits, we try to get as close to the hardest-hit part as quickly and safely as possible,” said Patricia Mazzei, the Miami bureau chief for The Times, who has covered natural disasters for more than 15 years, including several major hurricanes.

“At the beginning, it feels very like you’re the eyes and ears of the reader,” Mazzei said. “They’re not there, your editors are not there. You know that you have to absorb the sights and sounds and smells and what people are saying and how they feel and what it looks like and feels like for them. And then you have to pull out, in order to transmit this information. It’s a logistical dance that is very difficult and requires a lot of resources.”

When Mazzei and her colleagues reach a disaster zone, they often find people out surveying the damage or helping their neighbors. “You encounter these moments of humanity that sort of just blow your mind,” she said. “By telling their stories, we can let the world know what happened. And people really want the world to know what happened.”

Traveling with police officers, firefighters and search-and-rescue teams can also be essential in helping readers understand the urgency and severity of a storm. Their insight can help reporters piece together the damage the storm caused, and understand what it will take for a hard-hit community to come back from it.

Our reporters and editors reach out to emergency service agencies and forecasters as a disaster is unfolding, checking in hourly at times to let readers know where the most damage is occurring, and if they need to evacuate. But being at the scene, interviewing the people experiencing the brunt of the disaster, is how we can bring readers stories of survival, resilience and tragedy.

“It’s difficult to convey the panic and the immediacy of what people are feeling unless you get into the details,” said Shawn Hubler, a National desk reporter who has covered California floods, wildfires and earthquakes for 40 years. “They’ll say it was terrifying. And by terrifying, you don’t know what they mean until you drill down a little bit and you find out there were embers the size of baseballs slamming into their car as they tried to wind their way down some two-lane highway.”

The on-the-ground reporting can also lead to some of the most important stories The Times can tell, seeking to hold decision makers accountable when warnings aren’t issued or heeded, when poor choices put people or communities in harm’s way, or when long-term planning or infrastructure has been insufficient or neglected, making the outcomes of extreme weather even worse.

For our journalists back at the office, the pace during an ongoing weather story can be frenetic. Editors on the National and Express desks field reports from several locations while also monitoring the course of a storm, the problems it is causing — including evacuations, power outages and flight cancellations — and how those affected can seek help.

For events such as blizzards, typhoons, hurricanes and severe weather that could produce tornadoes, our weather data and graphics teams step in early with forecasts and graphics that show the likely path and intensity of the storms.

Our Weather Data team is led by John Keefe and anchored by the meteorologist Judson Jones. For this team it is data, data, data. “Because we are looking at it all the time, it’s easier for us to explain when there are weird quirks,” Keefe said. This allows the team to alert editors to a coming weather system.

The team uses data primarily from the National Weather Service, augmented by other branches of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And Jones keeps in close touch with scientists at these agencies, and with academics who research weather. His expertise allows him to speak their language and interpret their jargon for readers. “My job is to translate that into terms that matter,” he said, “and sometimes that’s filtering out what doesn’t matter.”

Our Graphics desk, led by Archie Tse, takes this information and turns it into maps that track a storm’s path; animated time loops that give readers the scale of the storm; and graphics that show rainfall, wind speed and storm surge. The goal is to create weather trackers that focus on the aspects that threaten to cause the most damage. Tse said that a combination of news judgment and design expertise goes into every graphic. “Our maps and visualizations are tailored for our readers to give them the information they need in a clear and concise way,” he said.

Because the science establishing a direct link between extreme weather events and the rapid warming of the planet is increasingly clear, our Climate desk, which includes more than a dozen journalists, joins in our coverage to provide data, visual explanations and insights.

Here are some of the sources we use for extreme weather events.

These are all available to the public, but we sometimes subscribe for access to more data.

We also provide guidance for those in the paths of storms, offering ways they can prepare for and survive hurricanes, flash floods and tornadoes.

Weather is news. We cover it with the understanding that it has an impact on readers’ lives. And while extreme events may begin as breaking news, they often become stories of survival, tragedy, science and accountability.

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Mass shootings: This is how The Times covers them.

“Our job is to never allow this to become routine, and to — once we do confirm it — react and cover it aggressively, as though it’s the very first one we’ve covered.”

Marc Lacey, managing editor

Our newsroom receives reports of active gunman situations in the United States at least once a day, on average. We monitor the situation, confirm details and, if warranted, send a team of reporters to the scene. Within 24 hours of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in 2018, The Times had at least 25 reporters and 15 editors working on the story.

Our overall goal is to give readers an in-depth account, while being sensitive to victims and loved ones. We want to avoid sensationalizing the crime or elevating the stature of the attacker.

Once we confirm a death count, we tell readers the scope of the shooting and how it fits into the bigger picture of these crimes across the country.

To create a consistent count of mass shootings in the United States, we have updated our definition of “mass shooting,” to include any shooting where four or more people are killed with a firearm — not including the assailant — in a public place and the shooting is not connected to another crime or circumstance, like a robbery, a drug deal or domestic violence. This definition, which was created by the Congressional Research Service, is based on the F.B.I.’s definition of mass murder. This definition is also used by the most comprehensive database on the subject: the Violence Project.

Our count of mass shootings is based on data from both the Gun Violence Archive and the Violence Project. We use data from both sources in order to make sure our database is as up-to-date and comprehensive as possible.

  • While we often rely on the reports given by law enforcement officials in control of a crime scene during a mass shooting, we let readers know what we can’t confirm, what we can and where and how we got the information.

  • We use the name of the suspect sparingly, and take special care to avoid it in headlines or social media posts.

  • We avoid descriptions that are cinematic, or lack attribution and sourcing.

  • We consult with our photo and standards editors before publishing graphic images or photographs of the suspect.

  • We focus on the victims’ and survivors’ experience of the shooting, while also reporting on the crime and the attacker.

  • We verify any information from a witness or victim found on social media and reach out to the person who posted it before we publish it.

We publish the suspect’s name when it is confirmed by authorities. But we do not want to give the person excessive prominence. There is evidence that media coverage can be a factor motivating future mass shootings.

We generally avoid publishing images in which the suspect is seen brandishing weapons. We will explain any ideology that might have influenced the gunman’s actions, but we do not typically publish or link to manifestoes that contain rationales for the attack.

Our reporters try to find out as much as they can about the suspect and approach anyone who might have crossed paths with the person. We supplement interviews with a thorough examination of public records. We want to give readers a sense of the human tragedy, so calling the loved ones of those who died in such circumstances is necessary.

How The Times uses visuals to investigate the news.

The Visual Investigations team at The New York Times uses satellite images, cellphone videos, social media posts and other visual elements to investigate and reconstruct news events like deadly police actions in the United States, oil smuggling in North Korea, and a devastating drone strike in Kabul.

These journalists employ traditional reporting methods as well, visiting the scene of an event and interviewing witnesses and survivors. But it is the digital investigative methods that set them apart and allow them to present a definitive account of the news.

When none of the police officers who raided Breonna Taylor’s home in Kentucky used body cameras, preventing a full understanding of what happened, the Visual Investigations team built a 3-D model of the scene and pieced together critical sequences of events to show how poor planning and shoddy police work led to a fatal outcome.

Malachy Browne, a senior story producer and a co-founder, in 2017, of the Visual Investigations team, spoke of the value of the team’s reporting when it earned them a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 2020: “Together, they established — without a doubt — that Russian pilots had bombed four hospitals, a market street and a refugee camp. All in Syria. Killing dozens of people.”

  • Using publicly available information, social media and on-the-ground reporting, team members collect videos and other documentary evidence of the event they’re investigating.

  • Reverse image searching that includes running still images through search engines helps confirm that a video is current. If the material has appeared online before, it will most likely show up in the search.

  • Comparing landmarks or matching structural damage (as in the war in Ukraine) in a video with satellite images or Google Streetview can help to pinpoint a precise area.

  • To verify when a video was filmed, team members check weather reports, measure the length of the sun’s shadows and check the metadata, or file information, of a video or photo. They also interview witnesses.

  • If they find that a video is taken out of context or is used to spread misinformation, they take to social media to warn others that the content is unreliable.

For more on the team’s process, read How The Times Verifies Eyewitness Videos by Christoph Koettl, who specializes in the analysis of satellite imagery, video and other visual evidence for The Times.

When The Times publishes an obscenity.

“In an age of ubiquitous vulgarity, it’s not very persuasive to argue that someone’s use of, say, the F word is deeply revealing.”

Phil Corbett, standards editor

You may have seen an obscenity in the pages, digital or print, of The New York Times. But this should be rare. We maintain a steep threshold for vulgar words.

There are times, however, when publishing an offensive expression is necessary for a reader’s understanding of what is being reported. For example, The Times doesn’t shy away from reporting vulgarities uttered by powerful public figures and wielded in a public setting. If a reporter feels strongly that offensive language should be used in an article, editors from the Standards desk — and sometimes the masthead — will discuss the merits of using the language before agreeing to publish it.

Even when we decide to publish such language, we typically confine it to a single reference, and avoid using it in headlines, news alerts or social media posts.

Far more often, we say no to offensive language, as with profiles of colorful characters who pepper their interviews with four-letter words. In these cases, we don’t feel compelled to publish every word they say. Instead, we opt for a general description like “used a vulgar expression.” And we often avoid repeating a vulgarity used in the name of a website, business, movie or band.

(There is one section of The Times where you may encounter vulgar language somewhat more often: Books. This is because we run excerpts from the books we feature, and we don’t tamper with the author’s language.)

We realize that some readers may see our approach to vulgar language as dated or even a bit stuffy. To be clear, it’s not that we think our readers are delicate or easily shocked. But we think they value a restrained and thoughtful tone. Here’s a sentence from The Times’s stylebook entry on “obscenity, vulgarity, profanity,” which is more than 700 words long:

“The Times differentiates itself by taking a stand for civility in public discourse, sometimes at an acknowledged cost in the vividness of an article or two, and sometimes at the price of submitting to gibes.”

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How The Times decides who gets an obituary.

“Some 155,000 people die between each day’s print version of The New York Times and the next — enough to fill Yankee Stadium three times over. On average, we publish obituaries on about three of them.”

William McDonald, obituary editor

Here, William McDonald explains the process of a Times obituary:

We start with a paper-thin fraction of the total — the deaths we happen to hear about, usually by email or from a wire service or other news outlet — and then get choosy.

We’re exclusive in the extreme. We have to be. We have only so much space in the print newspaper, only so many hands to produce stories and only so many hours in the day to produce them, yet we have a very wide world to watch.

We focus on people who made a difference on a large stage — people who, we think, will command the broadest interest. If you made news in life, chances are your death is news, too.

We investigate, research and ask around before settling on our subjects.

Some might think our process presumptuous. Who, after all, anointed a handful of Times editors to stand by the roadside as a parade of humanity passes and single out this one, this one — but not that one — as worthy of being remembered?

The answer is that no one did, actually, because that is not precisely what we decide. We make no judgments, moral or otherwise, about human worth. What we do try to judge, however, is newsworthiness, and that’s a whole other standard.

There is no formula, scoring system or checklist. One thing to remember is that it is not our intent to honor the dead; we leave the tributes to the eulogists. We seek only to report deaths and to sum up lives, illuminating why, in our judgment, those lives were significant. The justification for the obituary is in the story it tells.

What does The New York Times own?

The New York Times Company owns The New York Times newspaper, website and app, and several other businesses:

  • Wirecutter, the recommendation service

  • The Athletic, the sports news site

  • New York Times Cooking

  • New York Times Games, which includes Spelling Bee and Wordle.

Each business operates independently and is sold as a separate subscription, or as part of a bundle with the news site and app. (Wordle is free.) The company makes most of its money from these subscriptions and derives significant revenue from advertisers.

The paper also produces several podcasts, including “The Daily,” which sells sponsorships and ads. In addition, the company owns the podcast producer Serial Productions, as well as Audm, a service that creates audio versions of articles for various publishers.

The Times also publishes The New York Times International Edition, The New York Times Magazine, T: The New York Times Style Magazine and The New York Times Book Review. They all operate within the newsroom and are led by the executive editor.

The company used to own other newspapers, including The Boston Globe, as well as radio and television stations. The Times no longer owns these properties, focusing instead on fewer, digital news brands. The company has made minority investments in other businesses and start-ups, and because The Times has no operational control over these companies, it hasn’t disclosed details of these investments.

The Times owns the majority of its headquarters building in New York City and a printing plant. Both generate revenue. The building rents office space to outside companies, and the plant sells printing services to other publishers.

As a public company, The Times trades under the ticker symbol NYT, but the business is controlled by the Ochs-Sulzberger family through a trust. The publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, is a fifth-generation member of the family.

Additional financial information can be found here.

How The Times handles and confirms breaking crime news.

“When big news breaks, we aim to get to the bottom of what occurred as quickly as we can, although we keep in mind that oftentimes initial reports from the scene can be off.”

Marc Lacey, managing editor

The Times often relies on the reports given by law enforcement officials in control of a crime scene during a breaking news event. These initial reports can be valuable to readers, but they also can be incomplete and even inaccurate. We let readers know what we can’t confirm, what we can and where and how we got the information. Then we work aggressively to gather a wider range of perspectives on what happened and to verify the information through public records and interviews with witnesses and victims. We also search for video recordings of the incident and verify those before publishing.

  • Initial reports from law enforcement officials reflect their version of the events and are based on preliminary investigations.

  • Additional information may contradict these early reports.

  • Law enforcement officials may be withholding information for various reasons.

  • We are cautious when reporting about potential motives, especially when officials are making early statements about the motivation behind an incident.

  • We are clear with readers about what questions are unanswered.

  • When new information contradicts earlier reports, we level with readers on what has changed and when.

Sometimes the reporting on these events involves both the crime and how the police respond to it. Law enforcement officials at times make it difficult for us to access information, interview witnesses or verify their findings.

In the case of George Floyd, the initial police report was titled, “Man Dies After Medical Incident During Police Interaction.” Video recorded by a bystander showed police officers pinning Mr. Floyd to the ground.

By being upfront with readers about what we know and don’t know, we provide as much detail as possible while acknowledging it isn’t the full picture.

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Why The Times asks readers to contribute to our journalism.

“Inviting people to contribute to our reporting helps us grow the reach and scope of our journalism.

— Beena Raghavendran, editor, digital storytelling and training

Our journalists are skilled at asking questions and listening. Their work is usually done with one source at a time — over the phone, in an email or text message or in person. But what if we asked dozens or even hundreds of people those same questions, all at once?

By using questionnaires we allow our journalists to broaden their reporting and give readers a chance to respond to specific questions, describe their experiences and share images or other media. Questionnaires can generate hundreds of responses, which are often used in a follow-up article. For example, when a poll showed that political discord was threatening friendships and family relationships, our call-out drew more than 500 responses, allowing us to share with readers the views of people from across the country who ranged in age from 17 to 74.

Questionnaires are an extension of our traditional reporting methods and a way to ensure that our journalism reflects the world we cover.

  • After we’ve formulated a questionnaire and published it, a team of reporters and editors works together to read through every response. We then reach out to a portion of those who respond (sometimes up to several dozen people) for follow-up conversations. These can include an interview to get a longer, more detailed response, or just the agreement that we can use the response they submitted.

  • These questionnaires appear as articles and are available to anyone with internet access. You don’t need to subscribe or even register on our site.

  • We require a full name and email to participate. We may use this information to contact you to confirm that you are who you say you are.

  • We use questionnaire responses only for journalistic purposes. We store all responses in a secure database, built and maintained in house and accessible only to our journalists. We never use the personal information you share for marketing or any other business communication.

  • Whether or not we use your response, we strive to acknowledge that we have received it. We make every effort to contact you before publishing any part of your submission.

  • We publish more than 100 questionnaires each year and encourage our journalists covering all topics to explore this approach to reporting.

How The Times covers elections.

Our mission to bring you the truth through our journalism also includes warning you about the falsehoods. Misinformation flourished across social media in the final stretch before Election Day. We have several reporters tracking the trends and the shifting tactics employed by those spreading untruths. Here are five unfounded claims about voting in the midterm elections.

We report vote totals provided by The Associated Press, which collects results from states, counties and townships through a network of websites and more than 4,000 on-the-ground correspondents. To estimate how many votes remain to be counted, our team of data journalists and software engineers gathers vote tallies directly from the websites of election officials and compares these with our turnout expectations. Here’s more on how that works.

The needle is an innovative forecasting tool that was created by The Times and debuted in 2016. It is intended to help you understand what the votes tallied so far suggest about possible winners in key contests, before the election is called. Here’s a deeper dive into how it works.

We rely on The Associated Press, which employs a team of analysts, researchers and race callers who have a deep understanding of the states where they declare winners. In some tightly contested races, we independently evaluate A.P. race calls before declaring a winner. Here’s more about how it works.