Hi, it's still Inside Baseball Week here at Aftermath, and because there is nothing more inside baseball than a website posting about its own editorial values in a standalone blog, we're going to do just that.
You might be reading this wondering what the fuck "editorial values" even are. Allow me to explain! Many websites will find a small, forgotten space on their page (or, more often, buried deep inside their menus) and dedicate it to publicly listing a set of values and rules they think are important and which guide their work.
It's not a niche pursuit--you can read IGN's here, and Eurogamer's here, for example--but we never felt we needed one here because we thought our stances on everything from workers to AI were made clear through our work itself. Turns out that was presumptive of us; not only have we had people asking us from time to time where they can find our values, just so they can check them out (true inside baseball sickos, we salute you!) but it was also a case of us forgetting that while our core audience know who we are, there are plenty of people who only learn about Aftermath through a Google search or from being sent a link to a story, and so might have no idea what we stand for.
In which case, here are our official Editorial Values:
Aftermath rejects balance and performative impartiality as journalistic virtues. We strive to recognize the full humanity of those we cover, and strive for all reasonable fairness in our coverage. Honest reporting can be painful to subjects, and we recognize the effects such reporting may have on them. We take seriously our responsibility as journalists and strive to mitigate all unnecessary harm our reporting may cause.
Aftermath rejects the “view from nowhere” in favor of honest, individualized editorial voices. We employ any and all rhetorical devices in our writing, including opinion, humor, and sarcasm. At the same time, we recognize that our words and tone have consequences, whether or not we intend them to. We strive at all times to be humane, whatever form our editorial content takes.
Aftermath is an independent media organization, beholden only to our readers and ourselves. We do not let PR, advertisers, or companies dictate or influence our coverage. We take good faith reader feedback seriously and strive to incorporate it whenever feasible.
Aftermath values diversity in editorial content and personnel. We strive to uplift under-served individuals and voices in our editorial content. We strive to use anti-oppressive language and promptly correct such instances where we might fall short.
Aftermath values human-created journalism. We reject AI-generated editorial content and do not publish it except when it is required for a story. In such instances, AI-generated content will be clearly identified as such. We reject and do not use AI-generated art except in such instances as a story requires it, and we clearly identify it as such.
Riley actually wrote these up for our internal use months ago, but they were so perfect for external scrutiny that we've since added them to our 'About Us' page as well. Hopefully they answer any questions anyone might have about who we are and what this website stands for, but feel free to reach out if you've still got any!
