Twenty Peaceful Minutes (20PM) is a difficult site to categorize; it started simply as a personal blog and then a forum. Over the years, with the help of hundreds of residents that are proud to call Forney home, the site has evolved into something much more, a true community website for our town. Throughout this evolution, 20PM has found itself at the forefront of a number of breaking news stories and has developed into one of the sources Forney residents turn to for news and information.

Because the site began as a blog but has developed into much more, I feel like it’s important to define and publicize a set of ethics and standards that myself and anyone else who contributes to the site will abide by.

Journalistic Standards

First and foremost, 20PM subscribes to the Code of Ethics adopted by the Society of Professional Journalists. This Code of Ethics can be summarized by its four headings: Seek Truth and Report It; Minimize Harm; Act Independently; Be Accountable.

In addition to this Code, 20PM has adopted the following standards:

• News and opinion will always be clearly separated; opinion pieces will always be under categories such as ‘Opinion & Editorials’ and clearly designed as opinion.
• News and advertisements will always be clearly separated. Advertisers will not receive any special treatment in news articles or special news coverage of their business above and beyond the coverage provided or available to other, similar businesses.
• Integrity, honesty and openness will be pursued above all else – sensationalism has no place on 20PM.
• Reporting must be fair and balanced – opposing viewpoints, no matter how unpopular, should be represented.

Business & Advertising Standards

In addition to these journalistic standards, when selling advertisements on 20PM or otherwise representing this website in business or within the community, all representatives of 20PM will abide by the following standards:

• Do not misrepresent the amount of traffic the site receives. In addition, make clear the distinction between hits, visits and unique visitors. Along these lines, 20PM participates in Quantcast and is a Quantified Publisher. Quantcast provides accurate, verified, independent third-party metrics of the size of our audience. To view data about 20PM’s traffic, visit this page on Quantcast.

Updates

As the site continues to grow and develop and we face new situations, additional elements may be added to these standards. If you have any questions or comments about these standards, please contact me at Josh@TwentyPeacefulMinutes.com.

Welcome to Twenty Peaceful Minutes (20PM) - a community website for Forney, Texas. In addition to this blog, 20PM is home to the Forney discussion forums, which you may reach by clicking the Forney discussion forum link or going to http://20pm.net/forums; also, considering signing up for email or newsreader (RSS feed) notifications of new posts to the 20PM blog!