The rules for reported analysis, contributed articles, press releases, and automated credit-union profiles. The publisher is accountable for the publication and its corrections.
1 · Selection. The publisher selects reporting topics from primary records, data changes, tips, and the source-review queue.
2 · Drafting. Drafts are written from underlying records, with links supporting factual claims. Another outlet's reporting is credited and linked when relevant.
3 · Fact-check. Before publication, the editorial workflow checks specific claims against primary sources and records unresolved issues for review. New CU Wire numerical reporting requires a recorded source review tied to its exact title, excerpt, and body. Editing those claims requires a fresh review. Press releases and clearly labeled op-eds follow the separate editorial paths described below and do not require this additional numerical review record. A nearby citation or an AI confidence score is not proof that a number is correct.
4 · Human review. The publisher reviews reported analysis and contributed articles for sourcing, framing, attribution, and disclosures before approving publication. Contributed articles retain their submitted byline and wording.
5 · Publish & pin. Sources are linked inline. The published page identifies its date, content category, and author or issuing organization.
6 · Corrections. If anything is wrong — a number, a name, a date, a framing — we fix it on the original page, note what changed, and add a line to the corrections log. The original error is not removed.
Reported analysis and contributed articles. These appear in Featured. Contributed work retains its author's byline, and any relevant relationship is disclosed in the article.
Op-eds. These appear in Featured with an Op-Ed or Opinion label and an identified author. They express the author's views. They remain subject to editorial review, attribution, disclosures and corrections; the opinion label does not certify their figures as independently verified CU Wire data.
Press releases. Industry Insights relays issuer statements with their wording preserved. Safe submitted links remain clickable; distribution-page controls and media-contact details do not belong in the public body. Issuers and distribution services are identified separately. Submitted releases enter editorial review. The automated newswire feed may publish a release only after retrieving its body from a resolved source and passing completeness checks. Missing or very short source text is held for review.
Get to Know profiles. These are automated credit-union profiles built from sourced data. Publication requires material-fact validation and a recorded numerical source review; missing or failed checks leave a draft for review. Source notes distinguish the data periods used.
The Wire uses AI deliberately and openly. We do not use it to fabricate, to summarize trade press, or to manufacture quotes. It assists with source review and drafting under editorial control.
Drafting and source review take place in the editorial workflow, where sources and proposed changes can be inspected before publication.
What AI does. Assists with reading source records, checking claims, and preparing drafts in the editorial workflow.
What AI does not do. Pick what gets published. Manufacture quotes. Invent sources. Summarize other reporters' work. Generate photography. Decide who to interview. Send the story.
Who is accountable. The publisher owns the publishing rules and corrections. Reported and contributed articles identify their authors. Releases identify the issuer when verified, or explicitly name the distributor. Automated profiles are labeled as credit-union profiles.
The public corrections log records the date, the story, and what changed. Corrections also appear on the affected article.
Read the public corrections log for the current record of corrections and retractions.
The Wire takes no vendor sponsorship and sells no editorial influence. Trade-group, league, institutional, or philanthropic support is acceptable only when disclosed and governed by a written editorial-independence firewall.
It is also worth saying out loud how the publication is currently sustained. The Credit Union Wire is published by The Credit Union Wire LLC, a Michigan limited liability company. The same operator also runs a separate data product — CU Wire Data at cuwiredata.com — that operates paid tiers for scaled data use. Revenue from those tiers sustains the Wire. It does not buy editorial input. The two products are walled off the same way Bloomberg's terminal business is walled off from Bloomberg News, or Consumer Reports' testing operation is walled off from its reporting. A future nonprofit conversion is planned; it will be disclosed publicly when it happens.
The access model is free public inspection and paid operational-scale use. The Wire remains free to read. Basic public-interest data access can be free. Institutions pay for convenience, workflow, monitoring, exports, bulk access, and heavier research use — not for influence over the journalism.
Public data in the reporting. Wire articles may cite selected figures drawn from public NCUA 5300 Call Report data — including performance and asset-quality metrics such as ROA, delinquency, net charge-offs, loan-to-share, net interest margin, and efficiency — because reporting on public records is the journalism. The data product's free-preview boundary limits what the paid product's teaser shows to signed-out visitors; it does not restrict which sourced public figures the reporting may cite.
The current concrete commitments. No funder, sponsor, or data-product customer reviews drafts, picks stories, gets advance notice of coverage, or has veto over corrections. Funding relationships are disclosed in stories where they are relevant. Major gifts of $5,000 or more will be named publicly when received. The editorial wall is documented and the agreement template is available on request.
A list of things the Wire will not do, written down so they can be held against us.
· Sell coverage or access. No sponsored articles, no paid placement, no draft review, no story vetoes, no quiet retractions, and no preferential treatment for funders, sponsors, subscribers, or customers.
· Publish sponsored content. No native, no advertorial, no "in partnership with."
· Quietly remove or rewrite published stories. Corrections are visible; retractions are explicit.
· Summarize other reporters' work. If a story is broken by another outlet, we credit them and link out. If we add value, we add it through independent reporting from primary sources.
· Use AI to manufacture quotes, sources, or facts. Ever.
· Cover Joshua Herman's outside interests going forward. CU WealthNext has not been covered by the Wire and will not be. The Wire published two stories referencing Runline AI in April 2026, before this commitment was formalized; both remain published with a disclosure linked, consistent with our no-silent-removal rule. CU WealthNext and Runline AI are excluded from all future Wire coverage. See conflicts & disclosures.