This newspaper belongs to its readers
The Napa Tribune launches as an independent newspaper for Napa Valley, with clear rules on accuracy, corrections and the line between news and opinion.
We are the Napa Tribune, a real online newspaper for Napa Valley. Our parent company is Tribune Publications. We answer to no interest but our readers.
We begin with a simple proposition: this valley deserves reporting as serious as the place itself. Napa Valley is a working agricultural region, a global brand and a home to the people who live and work here. It deserves a newspaper that covers the water board with the same care it gives the harvest.
Our standards are not invented. They follow the tradition of the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics, organized around four principles: seek truth and report it, minimize harm, act independently, and be accountable and transparent. That code was first adopted in 1926 and has guided American newsrooms through every change in technology since.
In practice, those principles mean several concrete things. We verify before we publish, and we would rather be second than wrong. When we make an error, and we will, we will correct it promptly, visibly and without euphemism. Corrections are not buried; they are part of the record.
We keep news and opinion strictly separate. Our reporters report. They do not take positions on the matters they cover, and their bylines will never appear on this page. Opinion pieces are labeled as opinion, signed by their authors and argued in the open, where you can disagree with them.
This page speaks only for the Editorial Board. It does not speak for our reporters, and nothing on it should be mistaken for news coverage.
Finally, we work for you. Send us news tips. Tell us what we missed. Hold us to these promises, loudly, when we fall short. A newspaper is a compact with its readers, and we intend to keep our end of it.
None to date. The Tribune corrects errors promptly and transparently. Read our corrections policy.