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Opinion & Editorial Policy
Objectives
This is a summary of our policies and is not meant to be comprehensive. At the World of Golf we are committed to producing sports journalism that is accurate, fair and complete. Our writers act with honesty, transparency, and independence, including from conflicts of interest.
Opinions
Our fundamental objective is to provide content that is rooted in facts with solid research, and with the goal of provoking deep thoughts about the sport, its personalities and the events of the day. An opinion, written or oral, is intended to stimulate thinking and discussion on our sport.
To that end, we are influenced by the thinking of British philosopher, John Stuart Mill:
“...the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth produced by its collision with error.”
In other words, the world is a better place for having expressed an opinion. With that in mind, we encourage you to express your opinions and ideas on topics in and around the sport of golf, but to do so in a manner that is respectful of others so that everyone can participate freely and without reprisal from others. Please see our "Code of Conduct" for more information.
Newsgathering & Impartiality
Our writers and sports journalists are expected to maintain their professionalism and avoid nationalistic, chauvinistic approaches in writing or reporting. Boosterism is to be avoided and our writers and reporters are to maintain a "critical distance" when seeking facts, arguments and information from sources. Facts, arguments and issues should be presented without bias to our audience.
Diversity
Our Goal is to seek out diverse voices, not only in the types of golf stories we cover but also in our sources, on-screen, on-the-air, behind the scenes and within our workforce.
It is also our Goal to counteract the long-standing under representation of sportswomen in Golf. We strive to provide more articles, stories and features on women in our sport, whether it be as professional players or as coaches and trainers that contribute to the growth of our sport that we all love.
Ethical Standards and Expectations
To avoid an appearance of bias, no member of our writers or journalists may gamble on any golf sports, except for the occasional recreational type of office pool or, where permitted by law, a government sanctioned sports pool betting, such as "Sports Action" or similar.
Our journalists may receive press passes or media credentials to cover events, otherwise, accepting tickets, travel expenses, meals, gifts or any other benefit from teams or promoters is discouraged unless formally consented to by management, in which case, such acceptance is to be disclosed to the audience.
Sports reporters assigned to cover events may not serve as scorers or tournament officials.
Travel & Course Reviews
No writer or editor for the Travel & Lifestyle section, whether on assignment or not, may accept free or discounted services of any sort from any element of the travel industry. This includes hotels, resorts, restaurants, tour operators, airlines, railways, cruise lines, rental car companies and tourist attractions. This prohibition applies to the free trips commonly awarded in raffles at travel industry events. It does not apply, however, to routinely accumulated frequent-flyer points.
Occasionally, there may be instances where some form of hospitality or promotional consideration is provided and in those instances, they are to be disclosed to the audience.
No Travel writer may write about any travel service or product offered by a family member or close friend.
Corrections
Our Goal at the World of Golf is to be accurate and balanced. Our credibility on air and online depends upon such reporting. Accordingly, we will endeavour to promptly correct significant errors of fact, once we determine that an error has been made. The placement of a correction made will be dependent upon how critical the error is, when it is discovered and the repercussions of the error. If we are correcting a significant error in an online article, photo caption, video or other content, we should post a correction on the story page explaining the alteration in a timely fashion. Sometimes, our reporting may be accurate, but the wording used may not be as clear as it could be. In these situations, we will consider rewriting the story and/or publishing a clarification.
An online article is not considered inaccurate, or does not contain an error, simply because there have been future developments in a story after publication. However, we will consider newly available information to determine whether an update is necessary.
In the case of an update, a specific notification to our readers is not usually necessary as a time stamp will indicate that an update has occurred. Our archival material is very important, and in this digital age, reflects a permanent record of the information available at the time of original publication. In some exceptional cases, that material or parts of it may be substantially wrong. In these situations, we will review the material and determine whether the original story should be revised or rewritten, or whether an update, clarification or correction should be published. The content of a significant correction or clarification and its timing and placement will be the ultimate responsibility of senior management.
Requests to remove online content:
Our online journalism is part of the historical record and our archives represent our commitment to accuracy and fairness. Since our online material is available indefinitely and can be searched and retrieved online, we may be asked to “unpublish” or remove online articles or video, often many years after the content was first published. We do not, except in very narrow circumstances, unpublish articles or video. Source remorse or embarrassment is not a reason to unpublish. If someone changes their mind about being quoted, that is not sufficient reason to remove content from our archives.