Corrections Policy

1. How to Request a Correction

Anyone can request a correction to any published item at any time. Each item on Chatterbox News carries a “Report an error” link that takes you to /correct/[item], a dedicated correction-request form. You do not need an account to submit a correction request. We ask for your contact information only so we can follow up; anonymous corrections are accepted and reviewed on their merits.

2. Review Timeline

We target acknowledgment of every correction request within four business hours (Monday–Friday, 9 a.m.–6 p.m. Eastern) and a disposition decision (accepted, rejected with explanation, or escalated for additional review) within 48 hours of acknowledgment, as resources allow. These are good-faith targets, not contractual commitments; actual response times during the early launch period and outside business hours will vary.

If you have not heard back within 72 hours, please resubmit or email us directly. Urgent takedown or defamation requests should be flagged as such in the correction form; submission of any such request is not an admission of liability by Chatterbox.

3. What We Publish When a Correction Is Made

When a correction is accepted, we publish a correction notice attached to the original item. The correction notice states: what was wrong, what the correct information is, when the correction was made, and — once our editorial team is in place — the name of the reviewing editor who approved it. The original content is preserved in the record alongside the correction so that the full history is visible. We do not silently edit published items without a correction notice.

4. What We Cannot Do

We cannot delete published material from the audit record. Once an item has been published, it remains in our system with its full history — including any correction or retraction notices. This is an intentional accountability commitment: the public record of what we published, and when, is preserved even when we were wrong. We can annotate, correct, or retract an item, but we cannot make it disappear from the historical record.

5. Retraction

If an item is found to be wholly wrong — not a matter of a single correctable fact but a fundamental error that cannot be corrected in place — we will mark it Retracted. A retracted item displays a prominent retraction notice in place of the original content, explaining the reason for retraction. Retracted items are removed from active briefings, location pages, and search results; they remain accessible only via their direct URL with the retraction notice prominently displayed. The item is never surfaced as if it were current information.

6. Editor Identity in Correction Notices

When a correction notice is published, the name of the editor who reviewed and approved the correction is included in the notice. This applies to both corrections and retractions. During the early launch period, before a named editorial staff is in place, correction notices will identify the reviewing party as “Chatterbox Editorial.” Named attribution will be applied as soon as individual editors are onboarded.