Zebra Fact Check emailed the Poynter Institute on July 6, 2020 as part of a continued effort to obtain comment about an unclear attribution in the “Factually” newsletter Poynter publishes jointly with the American Press Institute.
Dear Tina Dyakon,
I’ve written you before about transparency issues at the Poynter Institute.
This week a new issue arose, with the “Factually” newsletter (published jointly by Poynter and the American Press Institute) publishing a 20-word verbatim quotation from the Washington Post without quotation marks or proper attribution.
The author of that section of the newsletter (implausibly) claims appropriate attribution was used. Last week I sent a description of the problem to Poynter’s Kelly McBride, hoping to obtain a quotable statement to use when writing on the topic. So far I have no response from McBride, and the example of poor attribution in the newsletter has yet to improve.
Research I did this morning suggests the present issue resembles the one that led to Jim Romenesko’s departure from Poynter. I would like a statement from the Poynter Institute describing its position on the similar practice exhibited with the “Factually” newsletter.
The Poynter Institute’s statement of ethics assures the public it offers transparency in terms of its publishing practices (bold emphasis added):
Transparency
We shine a light on our own journalistic processes, explaining how and why we make decisions. We do our best to disclose relevant information that may have influenced or affected our decisions.
In practice: We go out of our way to disclose information that our constituents and critics may find relevant, useful and helpful about the way we do business — and publish — at Poynter. We provide readers with sufficient information about who we are, how we work, how Poynter is financed, etc. to provide meaningful context for them to assess and judge the material we publish and teach.
I would like to see some evidence Poynter will go out of its way to disclose information this critic may find useful about the way Poynter does its publishing.
Thanks for your attention to this matter.
Pre-republication update 2-7-2026: Updated the Factually Newsletter URL using an archived version as of 2-7-2026. No change was made to the faulty attribution.