Culture Statement
Houston Public Media does not condone hate in any form in our workplace. We choose to foster a culture of trust with our listeners, audience, and our staff and support individuality and uniqueness of thought. HPM commits to serving as a source of strong and impartial journalism.
Ethics and Standards
Houston Public Media and News 88.7 report on Houston through the lens of the people who live here, their realities, and the solutions being brought to the table. We examine the unique aspects of the region's policies, geography and diversity of culture.
- We report stories that enlighten our audience, when it has a unique impact on our region or a community in our area, and when it connects listeners to communities outside their immediate circle.
- We reject misinformation, taking sides, stereotypes, sensationalizing, creating harm or inequity.
- Our values are accuracy, empathy, building trust, accountability, resiliency and curiosity.
- We tell stories with context that helps our audience understand and go beyond daily news headlines, with engaging conversations, with diverse perspectives, and with a sense of place, community and ownership
As an NPR member station, Houston Public Media's news team adheres to the standards of journalistic ethics as laid out in NPR's ethics handbook. That means our journalism is honest, and impartial. Our reporting is as fair and accurate as possible. As a public media outlet, we are independent, and we are transparent.
We take full accountability for our journalism. If we make mistakes, we correct them, clearly and transparently both on our website and on air. We work together to learn from those mistakes, and constantly strive to improve our reporting.
As NPR states:
We hold those who serve and influence the public to a high standard when we report about their actions. We must ask no less of ourselves. Journalism is a daily process of painting an ever truer picture of the world. Every step of this process – from reporting to editing to presenting information – may either strengthen or erode the public’s trust in us. We work hard to be worthy of that trust and to protect it.