Editorial standards

These are the rules Wrecker Weekly works to. If we break one, tell us.

What we publish

• Briefs are short items: what happened, in our words, with a short read on why it matters, labelled as our judgment, and a link to the original source. The read reasons from the facts in the story and never adds a fact, a figure or a forecast of its own.
• Analysis is our reading of a development: what changed, what is known, what is not. It uses several sources and carries a named author.
• Opinion argues a position. It is always labelled, always has a named author, and its facts are sourced like any other story. Opinion can be pointed and can be uncomfortable for the people it is about. It cannot be false.
• The Hook-Up is the Monday email and page that gathers the week’s stories.

Attribution

Every fact traces to a source we list at the bottom of the story, and the original source is linked first. When we rely on another outlet’s reporting, we name it in the text. A municipality’s, association’s or operator’s statement is that party’s claim, and we say so. Fee, rate and incident figures name who produced them and what they count. Forecasts and allegations are labelled, with who made them. If we could not confirm something, we say we have not confirmed it, or we do not run it.

In our own words

We summarize and link. We do not copy. Quotations are short, in quotation marks and attributed. We do not reuse other publishers’ images or headlines.

The checks every story passes

Before a story is published it is checked against its sources, checked by a second, independent system, and reviewed against these standards. Analysis and opinion get further review, including a reviewer whose job is to look for the error, the spin and the side we missed. Any edit after review means the checks run again.

Wrecker Weekly specifically

Rules name their jurisdiction. A licensing, fee, rotation or impound rule is stated with the state, province or municipality it applies to and the date it takes effect. A rule that applies in one place is never described as the industry’s rule.

Incidents are reported from records. A crash, injury or dispute involving a named operator or person is reported from a police, court or agency record, a party’s own statement, or a named witness, and says which. We do not assign fault ahead of a finding.

Disputes get both sides. Where operators, municipalities and motorists are in dispute, we say who is a party and report what each says in its own filings or statements.

We do not give legal, financial or insurance advice. Liability, lien and coverage stories cite the statute, ruling, policy or announcement and its date.

Where a story comes from and where it is placed

Every story has one topic and one or more regions. Canada is a region, so you can follow the rules where you operate. Impound and equipment are topics, not a way of sorting stories by the size of the operator.

Images

The images on our stories, when we run one, are illustrations, not news photographs. Each one is generated with an AI image tool and chosen to fit a topic, such as a rollback at a scene or a storage yard gate. None of them depicts the event, the people, the products or the companies in a story, and none is meant to. Every image carries a label on the page saying that it is an AI illustration, and the same statement is written into the image file. We never present a generated image as a photograph of a real event, and we do not use other publishers’ images or product artwork. If we ever run a real photograph, it is credited to the photographer and the source.

Interests we disclose

Wrecker Weekly is published by Christopher Ross, who also runs thisismyurl.com, a web and WordPress business. The only advertising on this site is labelled house advertising for that business. It has no say over what we cover, and we do not cover the publisher’s business as news. If that ever changes, we will say so on the story.

Independence

Advertisers and sponsors have no say over what we select or how we write about it. Sponsored content, if we ever run it, will be labelled as such and kept apart from editorial. We disclose any interest an author or the site has in a story.

Corrections

We fix errors openly. See corrections.