Ownership & Funding

Who owns Riverdale Standard

Riverdale Standard is owned and operated by a single independent operator, who funds it and runs it. It is not part of any media group, chain or network. It has no outside investors, no parent corporation, and no shareholder or partner who is not involved in running the site. It is not owned, wholly or in part, by any government body, political party, campaign, candidate, union, trade association or religious organisation, or by any business with interests in the sectors we cover, whether that is a studio, a publisher, a manufacturer, a club, a federation, a bank, a fund or a travel company.

We do not publish the operator’s name, company registration details, governing jurisdiction or a street address on this page, because that information gets scraped and reused in attempts to impersonate news organisations to their readers. If you have a legitimate need for it, such as serving legal process, verifying us for a transparency or press body, or evaluating us as an advertiser, write to support@riverdalestandard.com and we will confirm it in writing.

Because the owner is the person who runs the publication, there is no proprietor to satisfy and no one else to blame. If this site publishes something it should not have, the person who owns it published it.

No money from governments, parties or the industries we cover

We accept no money from any government or public body in any country, including government advertising, tourism board campaigns and public information campaigns placed directly with us. We accept no grants from political organisations and no money from any party, campaign, candidate or organisation acting for one. We accept no money, equipment, credits, travel or other consideration from the organisations we cover in exchange for anything, and where an organisation supplies a review unit, a screening, a test vehicle or a hosted trip, the supply is disclosed in the piece.

Political advertising that hides who is paying for it is refused wherever it originates. We would rather lose the revenue than let our pages become a channel for undisclosed spending.

Where the money comes from

Display advertising is the source of our revenue, and at present all of it. Banner units on the site are filled through the Adsterra advertising network, which sells the space, serves the creative and pays us a share of what it earns. We do not sell sponsored content. We do not sell links, guest posts, brand mentions or placements in stories, and the many emails we receive offering to buy them all get the same answer. We run no affiliate links; if we ever introduce them, they will be marked in the stories where they appear and described on this page before the first one runs.

There is no paywall, no subscription and no reader payment of any kind at present. We have no syndication or licensing revenue of any significance. The operator covers any shortfall between advertising revenue and costs personally. If the mix changes, this page changes before the money is spent.

How advertising is kept away from coverage

We are a small operation, so the separation between revenue and journalism is a matter of rules rather than of separate buildings. The rules are few and they are absolute. Because banners are filled by a network, we do not choose which advertiser appears next to which story and advertisers do not choose either. No advertiser is told what stories are coming. No advertiser sees a story before publication or is offered the chance to comment on one that is not about them. No story is commissioned, altered, delayed or killed because of an advertiser, and no advertiser has ever been promised otherwise.

If a company whose banner has appeared on the site is the subject of a story, the story is reported as any other would be. Because we do not sell direct placements, there is no relationship to disclose; if that ever changes, the relationship will be disclosed in the story where it is relevant to the reader.

Grants and other support

We currently receive no grant funding. We would consider grants from foundations that support independent journalism, on the condition that the funder has no say over coverage and that the grant, its amount and its purpose are disclosed here. We would not accept funding from any organisation whose activities the desks cover, including the philanthropic arms of companies, leagues, studios and governments.

Staff and contributors

Editors and writers are paid by the operator. Freelance contributors are paid per piece at a rate agreed before they start. Nobody who writes for us is paid by a subject of their coverage, and contributors disclose any connection to a subject, including holdings, prior employment, club membership and advisory roles, to an editor before taking on a story, as the editorial standards require.

What we will disclose

If the ownership of Riverdale Standard changes, if an outside investor takes a stake, if we accept grant funding, if we take government or political money of any kind, if we begin selling advertising directly, sponsored content or affiliate links, or if a new category of revenue appears, this page will say so, with dates. We would rather readers learn about our finances from us than discover them.

Questions

Questions about ownership or funding, including from readers, researchers, regulators, press bodies and prospective advertisers, go to support@riverdalestandard.com. We answer them, and where the answer involves registered details or governing law we give it in writing.