The Carroll News Policies

The Carroll News‘ policies regarding guest editorials, Letters to the Editor, comment sections and anonymity are as follows:

Guest column policy

The Carroll News gladly welcomes guest columns from members of the John Carroll community. To submit a column, email your name, affiliation with John Carroll University and column to our Opinion Editor, Brian Keim, at [email protected] and our Editor-in-Chief, Laken Kincaid, at [email protected].

We reserve the right to edit columns, determine, based on our discretion, whether to publish a column and decide the publication timeline of editorials. The submission of a guest column does not guarantee publication, but The Carroll News will do its best to work with guest authors through the editorial process. We prefer columns to remain under 1,000 words.

Letters to the Editor policy

The Carroll News encourages readers to submit Letters to the Editor regarding our recent coverage or general events affecting the John Carroll community. To submit a Letter to the Editor, email your name, affiliation with John Carroll University and editorial to our Editor-in-Chief, Laken Kincaid, at [email protected].

We reserve the right to edit Letters to the Editor, determine, based on our discretion, whether to publish a Letter to the Editor and decide the publication timeline of Letters to the Editor. The submission of a Letter to the Editor does not guarantee publication, but The Carroll News will do its best to accommodate all Letters to the Editor and to work with guest authors through the editorial process. We prefer Letters to the Editor to remain under 800 words.

Comment sections policy

The Carroll News welcomes and encourages readers to engage with content and express opinions through the comment sections on our website and social media platforms. The Carroll News reserves the right to block users or remove comments that contain vulgarity, hate speech, personal attacks, false information or that appear to be spam, commercial promotion, impersonation or without serious intent. The comment sections are moderated by our Editor-in-Chief, Laken Kincaid, and our Managing Editor, Grace Sherban. You can reach them at [email protected] and [email protected].

Anonymity policy

The Carroll News does not generally permit the quoting of anonymous sources in stories, but the Editor-in-Chief, Laken Kincaid, may give permission for this in cases where a crucial and knowledgeable source, whose identity is known to both the reporter and the article’s section editor, is not able to speak on the record for reasons of personal safety, possible job loss, or other serious consequence(s).

Requests for anonymity that have been granted historically include those related to FERPA, HIPAA and Title IX regulations, members of the LGBTQ+ community whose gender/sexual identity is revealed but who are not out and individuals who would face legal or professional repercussions for having their name attached to a piece.

To read our full Staff Manual, click below