How CogniLocal checks facts, uses AI, corrects errors and keeps editorial decisions independent.
The full editorial standards are published below. These four principles are the ones readers are most likely to need when deciding whether to trust the work.
Factual statements must be supportable by reliable sources. Primary sources are preferred for government actions, schools, courts, public safety, budgets, construction, public notices and official schedules. Unverified claims are not presented as established fact.
AI assists with source discovery, research, comparison, verification and continuing-story tracking. A human editor decides what belongs, what needs more verification, how it is framed and what is ultimately published.
Substantive errors are corrected in the published web edition with a correction note. If an error also appeared in an emailed edition, the correction is carried in the next emailed edition, or sooner when the error could cause material harm.
CogniLocal does not endorse or rank political choices. Advertising, sponsorship or donor support does not give anyone control over coverage, headlines, story placement or publication decisions.
Below is the complete governing stylebook, Version 1.7. It includes community coverage and on-demand language access.
Updated September 28, 2026
CogniLocal
Your Community, More Completely.
These standards govern all public-facing CogniLocal community reports, articles, updates and briefs.
The canonical public-facing brand is CogniLocal with a capital C and capital L.
Use CogniLocal consistently in mastheads, articles, social profiles, promotional materials and trademark-facing brand references. The lowercase domain form, such as cognilocal.com, does not change the display styling.
Community editions use this naming structure:
CogniLocal [Community]
When one edition serves two or more communities as a shared desk, join the community names with a slash:
CogniLocal [Community] / [Community]
Adding, removing or combining community desks under this naming pattern does not by itself require a new version of these standards.
Do not use a separate edition brand such as "Columbia Heights Updates" as the primary masthead. Descriptive phrases such as "daily update" or "community report" may appear as article labels when useful.
Every factual statement must be supportable by a reliable source. Primary sources are preferred whenever available, especially for government actions, school decisions, court records, election information, public safety, budgets, taxes, construction, public notices and official schedules.
A story belongs in CogniLocal when it directly concerns the community, its residents, its institutions or a development that materially affects local life.
The threshold for inclusion is intentionally low. If something meaningfully concerns people in the community, it may belong regardless of how small the story appears by conventional newsroom standards. A road closure, library program, zoning notice, school event, business opening, neighborhood concern, youth activity, obituary of genuine local significance or unresolved civic matter may all warrant coverage.
A statewide, countywide or metro-area story does not belong merely because local residents could theoretically care about it. It should have a concrete local connection.
AI may assist with source discovery, research, comparison, verification and story tracking. Final judgments about relevance, wording, inclusion, emphasis and publication remain human.
CogniLocal informs. It does not campaign, endorse, rank political choices or tell readers what conclusion to reach.
Neutrality does not mean avoiding facts that reflect poorly on officials, institutions, businesses or other community actors. It means applying fair sourcing, accurate wording, appropriate context and consistent standards regardless of who benefits from the facts.
Small local developments matter. That does not mean every item deserves the same length. Important stories receive context. Routine but useful information should be concise.
CogniLocal copy should be:
Write for an intelligent resident who wants to understand what is happening quickly.
Do not sound like a press release, police blotter, city memo, marketing page or AI summary.
Avoid throat-clearing phrases such as:
State the fact instead.
Use sentence case.
Headlines should tell readers what happened, not tease them.
Good:
40th Avenue work moves into storm-sewer installation
Bad:
Major changes coming to a busy Columbia Heights roadway
Avoid clickbait, rhetorical questions and exaggerated adjectives.
The first sentence should contain the most useful fact.
A resident should understand the development without reading three paragraphs of background.
Good:
Anoka County says storm-sewer installation will begin this week along the 40th Avenue reconstruction project.
Avoid starting with institutional process:
At its recent meeting, officials discussed...
Unless the meeting itself is the news.
Digital-first standard:
A typical daily-report item should run about 80 to 180 words unless the story requires more context.
For most daily items:
Do not repeat the headline in the first sentence.
Do not add internal editorial commentary explaining why CogniLocal chose the story.
Every daily report should begin with:
Your Community, More Completely.
Then include, when needed:
Use this section only when a prior emailed edition contained a substantive error. Place it immediately after the date line so corrections are prominent and consistent across every CogniLocal edition.
Then include:
Use 4 to 7 one-line bullets containing the day's most useful developments.
After that, organize the report into subject sections such as:
Do not create empty sections.
Use horizontal rules sparingly between major subject areas, not between every paragraph.
Use bold only for information that helps scanning:
Do not bold entire sentences.
Do not overuse italics. Reserve italics mainly for titles of films, books, publications and works.
Use full month names in running copy:
October 1
September 27, 2026
Use:
7 p.m.
9:30 a.m.
noon
midnight
When an event date could be confused with the publication date, state the date explicitly.
Relative terms such as "today," "tomorrow" and "this week" may be used only when the report date is clearly visible and the absolute date appears nearby when useful.
Use numerals when they improve scanning, especially for:
Examples:
age 16
$550 per pupil
5.3%
53-7
3 seats
In ordinary prose, spell out simple numbers from one through nine when the numeral does not materially improve scanning and does not fall within an exception above.
Follow a clean, restrained news style.
Omit the serial comma in a simple series:
teachers, staff and students
Use a serial comma when needed to prevent ambiguity.
Do not use em dashes.
Use commas, parentheses, colons or separate sentences instead.
Avoid exclamation points in straight news copy. They may appear inside quoted material or official event names when necessary.
Use a person's full name on first reference and surname on later references.
Use official titles when relevant to the story, but avoid title inflation.
Capitalize a formal title when it immediately precedes a name. Use lowercase when the title follows the name or is generic.
Put attribution close to the fact it supports.
Prefer:
Anoka County says crews will begin storm-sewer installation this week.
Over:
Crews will begin storm-sewer installation this week, according to Anoka County.
Either can be used, but attribution should never be so distant that a reader cannot tell who is making the claim.
For disputed or consequential claims, identify the source clearly.
When another news organization performed original reporting, credit it by name and link to the original report.
Examples:
CBS Minnesota reported...
The Brainerd Dispatch reported...
Do not rewrite another outlet's story so completely that CogniLocal becomes a substitute for reading the original.
Use outside reporting to identify developments, add necessary context and connect fragmented local information. Whenever possible, independently verify key facts through primary records, direct statements or additional reliable sources.
Do not reproduce another outlet's distinctive language, narrative structure, interviews or substantial original reporting.
Distinguish among:
Never convert an agenda item into an approved action unless the action is confirmed.
A meeting agenda proves what was scheduled for consideration, not what ultimately happened.
When minutes have not yet been approved, say so when that distinction matters.
Preserve the presumption of innocence.
Use:
charged with
accused of
prosecutors allege
Do not write as though an unadjudicated accusation is established fact.
Avoid sensational detail unless it materially helps readers understand the story.
When reporting a death, use "died" rather than euphemisms such as "passed away" in straight news copy.
Do not identify a private person merely because the person's name appears in a police log, dispatch record, neighborhood post or unverified allegation.
Names may be used when they are materially relevant and supported by reliable public records, formal charges, public statements or clear newsworthiness.
Exercise additional restraint with minors.
Do not name a juvenile who is accused, investigated, detained or otherwise involved in a public-safety matter unless the name is lawfully public and there is a compelling public-interest reason to use it.
Student athletes, award recipients, performers and other minors participating in ordinary public school or community activities may be named when they are publicly identified by the relevant institution and the coverage is routine, positive or otherwise non-sensitive.
Coverage must be factual, neutral and structurally fair.
CogniLocal does not:
When comparing candidates or ballot questions, use the same categories and level of scrutiny for each.
Election procedures, deadlines and ballot information should be sourced to official election authorities whenever possible.
Community Facebook pages, neighborhood groups, churches, civic organizations, local businesses, individual social accounts and word-of-mouth tips may identify real stories, but they are not automatically sufficient for publication.
Before publishing a factual claim originating from an unofficial source:
Do not publish rumor merely because it is widely repeated.
The attribution exception above is intended for low-risk firsthand observations about conditions, access, outages, events or the source's own experience. It does not justify publishing unverified allegations about identifiable private individuals.
Do not elevate an anonymous social-media claim into a news item solely because it is circulating widely.
A church, nonprofit, civic group or business may serve as the primary source for its own event, program, opening, closure or announcement.
Residency alone does not make an obituary a CogniLocal story.
Include a death when there is clear local significance, such as:
Write with restraint and respect.
State the result clearly.
Include additional context only when useful, such as record, next game, tournament implications or a notable performance.
Do not pad routine scores into full-length stories.
CogniLocal's community ties are an editorial strength, but personal relationships must not be hidden when they could reasonably affect a reader's understanding of a story.
Disclose a material personal connection when coverage involves:
The disclosure should be brief and specific.
Example:
Disclosure: The publisher has a family relationship with one of the people mentioned in this story.
A personal connection does not automatically prohibit coverage. It requires greater care, sourcing and transparency.
Visual material must meet the same accuracy and sourcing standards as written copy.
Use only images that:
Credit every photograph or illustration unless CogniLocal itself created it and the authorship is already clear.
Use a simple credit line such as:
Photo: City of Columbia Heights
or
Photo: Robert Meyers-Lussier
Do not copy or republish photographs from Facebook, Instagram, neighborhood groups or other social posts without permission from the rights holder, even when the post itself is public.
A social-media post may be linked or described when editorially appropriate without reproducing the image.
Do not use AI-generated images to depict or simulate real people, real places, real events, breaking news, crime scenes, public meetings, accidents, weather events or other factual local conditions.
AI-generated imagery may be used only for clearly non-factual decorative or explanatory purposes, and only when a reasonable reader could not mistake it for documentary evidence. When used, label it clearly.
Do not create synthetic quotations, screenshots, documents, maps or photographic evidence.
Do not materially alter documentary photographs in a way that changes their factual meaning. Normal cropping, exposure correction and minor tonal adjustment are acceptable when they do not misrepresent the scene.
Use descriptive Markdown links.
Good:
Anoka County Construction Weekly
Avoid naked URLs in published copy.
Use the label:
Source
or
Sources
Do not write:
Verification is an internal standard, not public-facing copy.
If published information is wrong, correct it transparently.
For a substantive correction, append a brief note:
Correction: An earlier version misstated the boys soccer score. DeLaSalle defeated Columbia Heights 3-0.
Do not announce corrections to unpublished drafts.
Correct the published text itself and add a correction note when the error is substantive.
An emailed report cannot be silently changed after delivery. When a substantive error appears in an emailed edition:
If an error creates an immediate public-safety, legal or materially harmful misunderstanding, issue a separate correction message rather than waiting for the next scheduled edition.
When a correction materially changes the meaning of a story, update the web text itself and add the correction note.
Use a short Still Developing section for unresolved stories that have no major new development.
Each item should tell the reader:
Do not write internal instructions such as:
CogniLocal should watch for...
Write:
Appointments have not yet been announced.
Do not repeat a fully reported story in Still Developing unless the unresolved element adds something useful.
Every CogniLocal edition should provide a clear, monitored way for readers to:
Publish the actual contact address or submission form only after it is active and monitored.
Reader submissions are leads, not automatically verified facts. Apply the same sourcing standards to reader tips as to any other unofficial source.
Advertising and sponsorship must remain separate from editorial judgment.
Paid or sponsored material must be clearly labeled with terms such as:
Sponsored
or
Paid content
The label must appear prominently enough that a reasonable reader will understand the commercial relationship before reading the material.
Advertisers, sponsors, donors and commercial partners receive no right to:
Accepting advertising from a local business, organization or institution does not exempt that entity from normal CogniLocal coverage.
Sponsored content must be visually and verbally distinguishable from independent editorial coverage.
CogniLocal should not design paid content to imitate ordinary news so closely that readers could reasonably mistake one for the other.
When a sponsorship relationship is materially relevant to a story, disclose it.
Place this once, at the end of each report:
CogniLocal is human-led community information supported by AI-assisted research, source discovery, verification and story tracking. Editorial judgment and final publication decisions remain human.
When a monitored reader-contact channel is active, follow with:
Tips and corrections: [contact method]
Do not lead with AI. The reader-facing promise is better local information.
Do not use:
Before publication, confirm:
Every desk uses the same broad, low-barrier local coverage standard. Include culturally meaningful local activity alongside other community reporting. Search beyond municipal homepages and major news outlets: libraries, schools, arts groups, cultural organizations, Indigenous organizations, faith communities, neighborhood groups, local businesses, food-assistance programs and accessibility services may all supply relevant leads.
Confirm the specific local connection, date, organizer and participation details. Do not assume a community's interests or language from demographic labels. A volunteer calendar is not automatically a public registration page. Cultural activity belongs in the appropriate ordinary section, not a separate demographic category.
English is the original publication and the default page language. Daily chat reports and email editions remain English only. Do not append a complete translation beneath the English report.
Offer an Español control on each community edition. This release opens Google Translate on demand in a separate tab for the exact dated edition. Label it as machine translation, retain the original source links and make returning to English straightforward. The translation provider is contacted only when the reader follows that link. Translation can be unavailable or inaccurate; factual corrections apply to the English original and its translations.
Use one compact “Read in:” row with visible language names and a short Google translation note. Show only available translations in that row. Brainerd / Baxter and Proctor retain Ojibwe / Anishinaabemowin dictionary and contribution links near the bottom in About CogniLocal. These are language resources, not edition translations. Add Ojibwe to the translation row only when a working, verified translation source is connected.
Wahiawā also offers Ilocano and Hawaiian (ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi) through Google Translate, using language codes ilo and haw. Apply the same machine-translation label and exact dated-edition target used for Spanish. Check provider support before marking a language available or unavailable; availability does not establish translation accuracy.
Use Hawaiian spelling marks in reader-facing names, including Wahiawā, Oʻahu and ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi. Preserve the ʻokina (ʻ, U+02BB) and kahakō (vowel macrons) in titles, mastheads, headlines, navigation, search labels and editorial text. Confirm unfamiliar names with authoritative local sources. Keep existing URL slugs, email addresses and source URLs unchanged, including /wahiawa/. Preserve verbatim quotations and official names as sourced.
NEW identifies newly reported developments or upcoming opportunities. First appearance alone does not make an old event new. BACKGROUND identifies historical context and must state the relevant source or event date; an old course catalog does not establish current registration. UPDATE requires later substantive information about a previously covered story. ONGOING identifies useful continuing information without a new development. RESOLVED identifies an answered question or ended condition.
Distinguish source publication dates, event dates and the date of the latest confirmed status. Carry unresolved stories forward with their actual last-confirmed date and next checkpoint. Packaging or translating an edition is not a new source verification. Never relabel yesterday's report as today's when the new report is missing.