Editorial Policies

The Runner is Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s student newspaper. It was founded in 2008 via a student referendum and began publishing in 2009. Since then it has served the KPU community as a freely-distributed, year-round news and culture publication that remains committed to dependable journalism. It is published by the Polytechnic Ink Publishing Society, a non-profit society funded by KPU students.

The Runner will not publish material which the editors deem to be problematic or discriminatory. The views expressed within the publication are not necessarily those of The Runner staff or of the Polytechnic Ink Publishing Society.

Commissioning Work and Receiving Pitches

In order for work to appear in The Runner, all material must be commissioned by an editor. In order for work to be commissioned, a contributor must either be assigned a pitch by an editor or have their pitch accepted by an editor. Lists of the editor-drafted pitches are sent to contributors via email on a weekly basis. Work submitted to The Runner that was not previously approved by the editors is not typically considered for publication.

The Runner’s editors will, however, occasionally publish unsolicited work as “Open Letters” or “Letters to the Editor” in order to facilitate dialogue with its readership, particularly within the KPU community. Those letters are still subject to editing for style, quality, length, and legality prior to publication, at the discretion of the editors.

Post-Publishing Revisions

The editors may need to revise material after publication, typically as an update to reflect an ongoing development or to correct wrongful information. When a change is made post-publishing, the editors will inform the contributor of the alteration to their work and it will be noted at the top of the article on our website.

Style and Quality

All material published by The Runner must adhere to the most recent version of the Canadian Press Stylebook and The Runner’s Style Guide. When there is conflicting information between these two sources, the editors will defer to The Runner’s in-house style.

In addition to revising all material to fit these style guides, the editors will look to revise for quality, accuracy, clarity, sentence structure, format, tone, and readability, among other factors.

Intellectual Property

All original written or graphic material commissioned for and published in The Runner is the intellectual property of the publication and thus the Polytechnic Ink Publishing Society. By submitting an original article to The Runner, the writer of said article grants the publication rights to edit, retitle, and reprint the piece, as well as the right to give others permission to reprint it.

Original Polytechnic Ink Publishing Society material can not be submitted to other publications without the consent of the editors. Contributors may not submit work completed for other publications to The Runner without explicitly stating that it has been published elsewhere.

Pre-publication Review

Articles are not to be shown to sources or people outside The Runner publication prior to publication.

In some cases, it may be acceptable to allow a source to review parts of an article for the purpose of accuracy. This exception must be approved beforehand by the editors.

Conflicts of Interest

Contributors of The Runner are required to be honest and transparent with the editors of the publication by informing them about conflicts of interest that are relevant to their writing as quickly as possible.

If a writer is involved in a conflict of interest, such as being related to, friends with, or employed by an interview necessary to the story, opportunity to write that story must be given to other unbiased contributors first. If, after this opportunity is given and the story has still not been claimed, it is up to the editors to decide whether or not the contributor involved in a conflict of interest can ethically write the piece.