Ethics Policy

This Ethics Policy applies to every member of the EVsBuzz.com team — full-time staff, freelancers, contributors, photographers, videographers, fact-checkers and editors. It supplements our Editorial Policy and our Fact-Check Policy and sets a single ethical baseline for everyone who publishes under our masthead.

1. Honesty

• We do not fabricate quotes, sources, data or scenes.
• We do not plagiarise. Where we quote or summarise another publication, we attribute and link.
• We do not stage events, doctor photographs, or use composite scenes without labelling them.
• We identify ourselves as journalists when reporting, except in narrowly justified investigative situations approved in advance by a senior editor.

2. Independence and conflicts of interest

• Writers do not cover companies in which they, their spouse or their dependents hold a material financial interest. Where coverage is unavoidable, the interest is disclosed inline.
• Writers do not accept paid trips, hosted launches, free vehicles, accessories, fuel, charging vouchers, hotel stays or hospitality from a manufacturer beyond what is necessary to cover an event, and any such hosting is disclosed at the bottom of the article.
• Writers do not accept cash gifts. Branded merchandise of nominal value is returned or donated.
• Writers do not write paid reviews for the brands they cover editorially.
• Writers complete an annual conflict-of-interest declaration covering equity holdings, advisory roles, family connections and side projects.

3. Gifts and review units

Press cars, EVs, two-wheelers and demo units are returned in the condition received. Where EVsBuzz.com keeps a long-term car for an extended ownership review, the loan terms are disclosed. Branded merchandise such as caps, key-chains and notebooks of trivial value may be retained; anything of higher value is returned, donated to charity or declined.

4. Treatment of sources

• We honour off-the-record agreements. Off-the-record information is not published.
• “On background” information is used to inform our reporting but not attributed.
• We do not pay sources for interviews.
• We are sensitive to power imbalances — speaking to a junior dealership employee is not the same as speaking to a chief executive.

5. Privacy and dignity

We do not publish home addresses, personal phone numbers, family member identities or other private information about non-public figures except where there is a clear public interest. Coverage of road accidents, recalls, fires and crashes is framed around facts, not images of victims. We do not republish private videos uploaded by accident or under coercion.

6. Fairness and balance

• We seek and represent the other side’s response in any critical story.
• We do not engage in personal attacks, mockery or stereotyping (caste, religion, gender, region, sexuality, ability).
• We label opinion as opinion.
• We acknowledge uncertainty where it exists (“expected”, “appears”, “people familiar with”).

7. Social media

Writers’ social-media activity reflects on EVsBuzz.com. Staff are expected to maintain professional standards online, disclose their affiliation with EVsBuzz.com when commenting on coverage, and refrain from partisan or commercial promotion that could compromise their reporting.

8. Reader-facing transparency

Where this policy requires disclosure (e.g. travel funded by a manufacturer, an affiliate relationship, AI assistance, a writer’s family connection), the disclosure appears inside the article — usually at the bottom — in plain language.

9. Compliance with platform policies

We adhere to Google AdSense and Google Ad Manager policies on dangerous, derogatory, deceptive and sexually explicit content. We refuse advertising that encourages illegal modifications, illegal racing, drink-driving, document forgery or any other activity that endangers life or breaks the law.

10. Whistleblowers

Staff and contributors who in good faith report a breach of this policy, the Editorial Policy or the Fact-Check Policy are protected from retaliation. Reports may be sent confidentially to legal@evsbuzz.com.

11. Sanctions

Material breaches of this policy may lead to correction, retraction, removal of byline, suspension of access to the CMS, termination of engagement and, in serious cases, legal action.