The commitments project-diada.org makes about independence, money, and its duty to readers.
Independence
Nobody outside the editorial process decides what we publish. Not advertisers, not sponsors, not institutions, not the researchers whose work we cover. Coverage is not for sale at any price, and any attempt to buy it is grounds for us to write about the attempt.
Money
project-diada.org carries advertising. Advertisers have no access to editorial decisions, no advance sight of articles, and no influence over what we cover. Advertising is visually distinct from editorial content. We do not accept advertising that we would not be willing to criticise in an article.
We do not use affiliate links and we earn no commission on anything a reader might buy.
We do not accept payment for coverage, guest posts, link insertions or “sponsored research summaries”, and we do not sell links. Requests of that kind are declined without reply.
Conflicts of interest
Where anyone involved in an article has a relationship with the research, the institution or a commercial party connected to it, that is disclosed in the article. Where a conflict is significant enough to compromise the piece, someone else writes it, or we do not run it.
We disclose funding and competing interests declared in the studies we cover. Industry funding does not disqualify research, but readers are entitled to know it exists.
Duty of care to readers
People arrive at psychology and mental health articles worried. We do not trade on that.
- No fear-driven headlines, and no headline the article cannot support
- No diagnostic checklists or self-tests
- No content engineered to convince a healthy person that something is wrong with them
- Safe-messaging guidance followed on suicide, self-harm and eating disorders
- Support information carried where the subject warrants it
- Never implying a reader, or their parent, caused their condition
The people in the research
Study participants are people. Readers living with a condition are not case studies. We avoid language that reduces a person to a diagnosis, and we avoid the stock imagery that does the same thing visually — the anonymous figure with their head in their hands, and the rest of that visual vocabulary.
Accuracy over reach
Where an accurate headline will perform worse than an overstated one, we publish the accurate one. This is a real cost and we accept it.
Plagiarism and attribution
We do not reproduce other publications’ work as our own. Where another outlet broke a story or did reporting we are building on, we say so and link to them. Quotations are attributed to the person who said them and the place they said it.
Privacy
We do not publish identifying details of private individuals, and we do not solicit clinical information from readers. Anything sent to us is handled under our privacy commitment.
Accountability
Errors are corrected openly and permanently under our corrections policy. If you believe we have breached this policy, write to [email protected] and we will answer.