Editorial Policy

Editorial Standards & Ethics

The principles, processes, and commitments that govern how GPS reports, edits, corrects, funds, and stands behind its work.

Mission & Independence

Georgia Prisoners’ Speak (GPS) is an investigative newsroom and research organization operating under The GDC Accountability Project, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Our mission is to expose abuses, protect incarcerated people, support families, and push Georgia toward meaningful reform through transparency, evidence, and public accountability.

GPS is editorially independent. We are not affiliated with any government agency, political party, candidate, religious institution, or commercial entity. We accept no funding — in any form — from the Georgia Department of Corrections, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles, GDC contractors or vendors, prison-industry interests, or any organization whose conduct we cover.

No funder, donor, board member, or partner organization has the authority to direct, approve, suppress, or alter GPS coverage. The editor responsible for a story has final authority over whether and how it is published.

Verification & Fact-Checking

Every published claim should be either independently verifiable or attributed to a clearly identified source. Our editorial process is built on the following commitments:

Two-source standard for material claims

Material factual claims — especially about specific incidents, deaths, named individuals, or institutional misconduct — must be corroborated by at least one independent source or document before publication, except where the claim is itself a primary record (court filing, official report, public data set).

Primary-source preference

When the underlying record exists — a court order, a GDC Standard Operating Procedure, a Friday Report, a Monthly Report, an audit, an autopsy, a budget line — we link to or reproduce the primary source and quote it directly rather than paraphrase.

Numbers are verified, not estimated

GPS publishes derived statistics (mortality counts, homicide ratios, overcrowding rates, spending figures) only after they have been computed from official records or our own audited datasets. Where a number is contested or imprecise, we say so and show the underlying data.

Editor review before publication

Every article is reviewed by an editor other than its primary writer before publication. Investigative pieces receive an additional fact-check pass against the underlying records, including a line-by-line review of any direct quote, statistic, or named-individual claim.

Document our chain of evidence

For investigative work, GPS retains the underlying records — emails, letters, photos, recordings, public-records responses, screenshots, datasets — that support each material claim, so any factual challenge can be traced back to its origin.

Hold the story until it is right

We do not race competitors at the cost of accuracy. If a claim cannot be verified to our standard, we hold the story, narrow it to what we can prove, or kill it.

Examples of GPS investigations using this process — with footnoted primary sources and linked records — can be reviewed in our Featured Articles archive.

Bylines & Attribution

Every GPS article identifies the person or people who wrote it through a clear byline at the top of the story, with a publication date and a link to the author’s GPS profile listing their other work.

When work is collaborative — for example, a reporter working with a data analyst, or a story built on a confidential source’s account — the byline reflects all primary contributors. Investigations that draw materially on the work of an outside journalist, organization, or court filing credit that source in-line and in a footnote.

Guest contributors and freelance journalists publish under their own bylines through the GPS Story Editor. They are credited as authors and identified as contributors in their author profile.

One narrow exception — safety-anonymous bylines. When publishing under a real name would create a credible safety risk for the writer (most often an incarcerated contributor or a current GDC staff whistleblower), GPS may publish under a pseudonym or under the institutional GPS Editorial Team byline. The decision is documented internally, and the substance of the work is held to the same verification standards as any other byline. Our use of pseudonyms is rare and never used to obscure conflicts of interest or commercial relationships.

Right of Reply

Subjects of GPS reporting — agencies, officials, named individuals, contractors — are given a meaningful opportunity to respond before publication when our reporting raises potentially adverse claims about them. This includes:

Sending the relevant findings, dates, and the specific allegations or factual claims we intend to publish.
Providing a clearly stated, reasonable deadline for response, calibrated to the urgency of the story.
Publishing the response — on the record, in full or fairly summarized — within the article itself, not as a separate item.

When the subject does not respond

The Georgia Department of Corrections has an established practice of declining to respond to GPS inquiries, and a documented practice of not responding to other Georgia journalists in many cases as well. When an agency or official does not reply, we say so plainly: “The Georgia Department of Corrections did not respond to a request for comment.” We do not characterize silence as agreement, denial, or anything else.

Post-publication responses

Subjects who contact GPS after publication may submit a response or correction request through accountability@gps.press. Substantive responses are appended to the original story or treated as corrections (see below) where appropriate.

Corrections & Clarifications

GPS commits to correcting factual errors transparently and quickly. Our standard:

How to report an error

If you believe GPS has published a factual error, please email accountability@gps.press with:

The article URL or title
The specific passage you believe is wrong
Whatever supporting evidence or source you have for the correct version

An editor will review the request, verify against our underlying records, and respond. We aim to acknowledge correction requests within two business days and resolve them within five.

How corrections are handled

Correction: A factual error in the original story (a wrong date, wrong number, misidentified person, misquoted source, etc.). The article is updated, the original error is described in a dated correction note appended at the top or bottom of the article, and the URL is preserved.
Clarification: The original article was technically accurate but reasonably could be misread. We add a clarifying note explaining what was unclear and what we now state more precisely.
Update: New information has emerged since publication that changes or extends the picture. We append a dated update note and may publish a follow-up story rather than rewriting the original.
Retraction: The factual basis for the story has collapsed and cannot be restored. We retract the article, leave the URL live with a clearly labeled retraction notice and explanation in place of the original text, and explain what went wrong.

We do not silently edit published articles. Substantive changes to a published story always carry a dated note describing what was changed and why.

Opinion, Analysis & Advocacy

GPS publishes three distinct types of work, and each is labeled to make the distinction visible to readers:

Reporting: Original news, investigative reporting, and data journalism — presented in the third person, with cited primary sources, linked records, and direct quotes from named or appropriately-protected sources. The bulk of GPS content is reporting.
Analysis: Reporter-led pieces that go beyond the bare facts to explain mechanisms, patterns, or implications. Analysis stays grounded in evidence, but it draws conclusions the reporter is willing to defend. These pieces are tagged in their category metadata and signposted in framing.
Opinion & Advocacy: Editorials, commentary, and advocacy material — including campaign content tied to End the Warehouse and Vision 2027. These pieces argue for a position. They are clearly labeled as opinion or advocacy, and the writer’s stake is disclosed.

GPS is an advocacy newsroom: we openly call for reform, accountability, and action. We do not pretend to be neutral about whether incarcerated Georgians should die in custody at the rates documented in our reporting. But the line between “what the record shows” and “what GPS believes should happen as a result” is one we keep visible to the reader.

Conflicts of Interest & Gifts

GPS staff, contractors, and contributors hold themselves to the following standards:

Disclose, recuse, or both. Any reporter, editor, or contributor with a personal, financial, familial, professional, or political relationship to a person or institution covered in a story must disclose that relationship to their editor before working on the piece. The editor decides whether to disclose the relationship in the article, reassign the work, or both.
No paid coverage. GPS does not accept payment to publish, suppress, or shape coverage. We do not run sponsored content or native advertising styled to look like reporting.
No gifts from subjects of coverage. Staff and contributors do not accept gifts, paid travel, hospitality, or favors from agencies, officials, contractors, or other parties they cover or may cover. Nominal items (a cup of coffee at a meeting, a free public report) are exempt.
No outside political work that compromises coverage. Staff who participate in campaigns, lobbying, or political activity disclose that activity to GPS leadership. Editors will not assign coverage of a campaign, candidate, or policy fight in which a reporter is personally engaged in a way that would compromise the appearance of independence.
Plagiarism is disqualifying. All published GPS work must be original. Quotation, paraphrase, and adaptation of other journalists’ or scholars’ work must be properly attributed. Confirmed plagiarism is grounds for removal from the byline rotation and, where applicable, retraction of the affected work.
No undisclosed relationships with sources. Reporters do not enter into financial, romantic, or political relationships with sources they cover, and disclose any pre-existing relationship to their editor.

AI Use Disclosure

GPS uses artificial intelligence tools throughout its newsroom and in its public-facing products. We disclose this openly and govern it under the following rules:

Where AI is used

Research and discovery. AI assists with searching the GPS Research Library, the GDC Policy Library, the offender database, and other internal datasets — surfacing relevant records that a human reporter then verifies.
Drafting assistance. AI may be used to help structure outlines, generate first-pass language, or summarize long records. AI-generated text is not published until a human writer or editor has reviewed, rewritten as needed, and verified every factual claim against primary sources.
Data analysis. AI is used to clean, parse, and analyze structured data — for example, computing mortality statistics from GDC reports or extracting data points from PDFs — with the underlying calculations documented.
Image generation. Some article featured images are AI-generated illustrations or composites. These are used for visual framing only and are never used to depict specific real people, real incidents, real facilities, or real evidence. AI-generated images are not presented as photojournalism.
Public AI products. GPS publishes consumer-facing AI tools — including GPS Lighthouse, the Tell My Story guided interview, the Parole Packet Builder, and the GPS Advocacy Network email tool — and these are clearly labeled as AI assistants in the user interface.

Where AI is not used

Quotes are never invented. Every quotation in a GPS article comes from a real, verifiable source: a human source, a court record, a public document, or a recorded statement. AI is not used to generate quotes attributed to real people.
Sources are never fabricated. Every cited source — named or anonymous — corresponds to a real, documented person, document, or dataset.
No autonomous publishing. No GPS article is published by an AI system without human editorial review. A human editor approves every story.

Accountability

If an AI tool produces a factual error in published GPS content, the responsibility belongs to the human writer and editor, not the tool. Our corrections process applies to AI-assisted work the same way it applies to any other work.

Anonymous & Confidential Sources

GPS reports on conditions inside facilities controlled by the people we report on. Our incarcerated sources cannot leave, hide, or call a lawyer at will, and the Georgia Department of Corrections has a documented record of retaliation against people who speak up. Source protection is not optional — it is the foundation of every editorial decision we make.

The full framework, including how we classify sources by risk tier, when identifying details may be published, and how we handle letters and direct communications, is published as a separate policy:

Read the full GPS Source Protection Policy →

The short version: anonymity is granted when identification would create a serious risk to the source, when the information cannot be obtained on the record, and when the source’s account can be corroborated by a second source or an independent record. Anonymous sourcing is approved by an editor, not by the reporter alone.

Funding & Revenue Transparency

GPS operates as the public newsroom of The GDC Accountability Project, Inc., an IRS-recognized 501(c)(3) public charity. Our annual IRS Form 990, once filed, is publicly available through the IRS, GuideStar/Candid, and on request from GPS.

How GPS is funded

GPS draws revenue from these categories, in approximate order of contribution:

Source	Description
Individual donors	Small gifts from members of the public — families of incarcerated Georgians, advocates, and supporters — through our website, mail, and direct outreach.
Major individual gifts	Larger contributions from individuals committed to prison accountability and investigative journalism in Georgia.
Foundation grants	Restricted and unrestricted grants from philanthropic foundations supporting independent journalism, criminal-justice reform, and civic accountability work.
In-kind support	Donated services, software, hosting, and volunteer hours that allow GPS to operate at a fraction of its true cost.

What GPS will not accept

Funding from the Georgia Department of Corrections, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles, or any other Georgia or federal corrections agency.
Funding from prison-industry vendors, contractors, commissary or telecom providers, or any business with a financial interest in incarcerated Georgians or their families.
Funding from political parties, candidate campaigns, or registered Georgia lobbyists.
Anonymous gifts above a threshold set by the board, where we cannot satisfy ourselves that the source falls outside the categories above.
Any gift or grant offered with conditions on coverage, access, or editorial direction. Funders are welcome to support specific bodies of work (for example, the GPS Mortality Database) but cannot direct what we conclude.

Editorial firewall

No funder reviews GPS reporting before publication. No funder has approval authority over what we cover, who we name, or what we conclude. Major funders are disclosed by name in our annual reporting and, where relevant to a specific story, in the article itself.

Other ways we fund the work

GPS does not run advertising on gps.press. We do not sell user data. The GPS Lighthouse mobile app and other GPS tools are free to use, with data practices documented in the GPS Lighthouse Privacy Policy.

Want to see the financials? Our IRS Form 990 (once filed for the relevant tax year) is publicly available, and we will provide a copy on request to accountability@gps.press.

Reader Engagement

GPS is built on the participation of the people it serves. Readers, families, advocates, incarcerated Georgians, and journalists shape our agenda directly through:

Tell My Story — an AI-guided interview platform that lets incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people share their experience in their own voice.
Submit a Report — a confidential channel for reporting deaths, violence, medical neglect, retaliation, and other conditions inside Georgia facilities.
Idea Bank — a public submission portal for story ideas, questions, and angles you want GPS to investigate.
GPS Advocate Network — readers who join receive weekly Action Alerts and can help direct advocacy campaigns.
Direct contact — the contact form and inbox at accountability@gps.press, monitored by GPS staff.
Letters and responses to coverage — substantive reader responses, corrections, and counter-evidence are reviewed and, when appropriate, appended to the relevant article or published as follow-up reporting.

How to Reach Us

Different concerns route to the same inbox, but please flag the subject line so it routes correctly:

Corrections & clarifications: accountability@gps.press — subject line: CORRECTION REQUEST
Ethics & conflict-of-interest concerns: accountability@gps.press — subject line: ETHICS CONCERN
Right-of-reply submissions from subjects of coverage: accountability@gps.press — subject line: RESPONSE TO COVERAGE
Press inquiries & media requests: media@gps.press — or visit our Media Resource Center
Confidential tips: Submit a confidential report — protected under our Source Protection Policy

Mailing address

The GDC Accountability Project, Inc.
285 W Wieuca Rd NE #4153
Atlanta, GA 30342

Policy review

This policy is reviewed annually and updated as needed. Material changes will be noted with a dated revision history at the bottom of this page.

This policy was developed by GPS editorial leadership. It complements, and should be read alongside, the GPS Source Protection Policy and the GPS Lighthouse Privacy Policy. Where any of these policies appear to conflict, the Source Protection Policy controls for any decision involving the safety of an incarcerated source.

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