Our standards

The people living with a system’s decisions deserve to know how it made them and who answers for them.

We ask companies to explain their decisions. Here are ours.

On this page

(1) How we use AI
(2) Corrections
(3) Sources
(4) Images
(5) Ads and sponsors
(6) Privacy

(1) How we use AI

Ethan Ward reports every story and puts his name on it. He uses AI for research and editing: finding patterns in documents and data, which he checks by hand against the original source, and checking copy. On Instagram, Threads, and TikTok, AI tools also help produce graphics and video from our own reporting and designs. A person checks everything before it’s published, and no AI tool makes an editorial decision.

Every quote comes from the person who said it. Every fact is checked against its source, not against an AI answer.

We never make AI images of real people. Any other AI-made image is labeled. Every story ends with a link to this section.

AI search tools can read and cite our site. We allow it so our reporting turns up where people ask their questions.

(2) Corrections

When we get something wrong, we fix it and say so at the end of the story: what was wrong, what’s right, and the date we changed it. We don’t change a story without a note.

If the error changed what the story means, the correction also runs in the next edition. A mistake in a post is fixed in the caption or in a follow-up post.

Spotted one? Write to [email protected] with “Correction” in the subject line. Tell us what’s wrong and, if you can, how you know.

(3) Sources and anonymity

We name people whenever we can. We leave a name out only when using it could cost someone their job, home, safety, or account, and the story says why.

We know who every unnamed source is. We don’t pay sources. Nothing that identifies someone who sent a tip is published without their yes.

We ask every company and agency we write about to respond, unless the story is built on what it has already said on the record. We print what they say, or that they didn’t answer.

(4) Images

Story images are collages we make from real objects, or editorial photos licensed from agencies such as Getty Images and Shutterstock. Licensed photos carry a credit and are never changed beyond cropping and basic color fixes. We don’t use posed stock photos of people acting out a story.

People in our stories are photographed with their consent, in their own places. Viral images we check appear as credited screenshots, with our label inside the frame so it stays on when they’re shared.

(5) Ads, sponsors and independence

Interested Party is free to read. Ads and sponsors pay for it. Ads appear in the monthly edition and on the site, sometimes inside a story. Every ad is labeled and kept apart from the reporting.

Advertisers and sponsors buy placement and an audience, never a topic. They don’t see stories before they run and can’t change them after.

Most ads come through the Beehiiv Ad Network, and we choose them one offer at a time. Every ad has the word “Sponsored” above it. Sometimes we add one line before an ad saying who it might be useful for. That line never says we’ve used a product unless we have.

An ad never runs in or next to a story about that company or the kind of thing it sells. If we report on an advertiser or sponsor, the story says so.

We don’t run political ads. We don’t run ads for payday or predatory loans, crypto or trading schemes, gambling, or “AI detectors,” or from companies that sell tenant screening, hiring screening, or surveillance. We also turn down anything we’d be embarrassed to explain to you.

Interested Party is published by HEATDRAWN Media, Ethan’s media company. If HEATDRAWN has done work for a company we cover, the story says so.

(6) Privacy

When you sign up, we keep your email address. One optional screen then asks for your first name, where software has decided something about you, how you use AI, and whether we can follow up about what happened. You can skip any of it.

Your first name goes in the greeting. Your answers help us choose what to report and what to ask in the edition. If you said yes to a follow-up, Ethan may write to ask what happened. If you said no, he won’t.

Tips are private, and only Ethan reads them. The email on a tip is used to write back about that tip, not to sign you up. We keep a tip only as long as the reporting needs it, and we’ll delete yours if you ask.

Beehiiv runs this site and sends our email, so it stores these details for us and counts opens and clicks. We don’t sell your details or give them to advertisers.

To see, change, or delete what we hold about you, write to [email protected]. Every email has an unsubscribe link at the bottom. Full privacy policy

Last updated October 17, 2026. Questions about these standards: [email protected]