Editorial standards

Last updated October 6, 2026

These standards govern everything Nothing to Report publishes: vertical cuts, narrative cuts and long-form cuts, the titles, captions, slugs and on-screen text that frame them, and this website. They supplement our Terms & conditions and our Privacy policy.

Scope and purpose

In short: we publish official releases with their credits attached, a person reviews every cut before it ships, and nobody buys editorial treatment.

These standards apply to Nothing to Report, an editorial brand published and operated by Show Me Television, LLC ("Nothing to Report," "we," "us," or "our"), on every surface where it appears, and to anything a partner supplies for publication under the brand.

Our data and technology partner, API Automations, and our featured narrative partner, Civic Forecast, publish their own editorial standards. Where our material runs on a partner's surface, both sets apply; where they differ, the stricter requirement governs, and nothing in a partner's standards reduces what we commit to here.

These standards are a statement of our editorial practice. They are not legal advice, they do not create a contractual right for any third party, and they do not modify the Terms & conditions.

Our editorial mission

Nothing to Report is the cultural layer between raw institutional media and the public feed. The U.S. military releases thousands of photos and videos every week; most of them reach the public without context, or reach it stripped of the credit that tells you who made them and why. We exist to put both back.

Every editorial decision is measured against one question: does the viewer leave knowing what they actually saw, where it came from, and who shot it? We would rather publish less and be relied upon than publish more and be checked.

What Nothing to Report is, and is not

Nothing to Report is an independent editorial media brand. We package officially released, public U.S. military photo and video into short, context-first video for modern platforms.

We are not a news wire, and we do not report on operations beyond what the official release and its public record say. We do not claim access, sources or knowledge we do not have. We say this here because it bounds what these standards can promise.

Where our material appears

Wherever our material runs, these standards apply.

Sourcing and release status

• Official public releases only. We work from imagery that U.S. government personnel have publicly released, delivered to us under license by API Automations. We do not publish leaked, unreleased or privately obtained military imagery.
• Released means released. Every item must carry a resolved "released" status before it can be packaged. A blank or unresolved status stops the workflow and holds the item.
• The source identifier travels with the cut. The release's asset identifier stays in our metadata, so any cut can be traced back to the exact record it came from.
• The source's facts are the facts. Who, what, where and when come from the release and its caption. Where the release is silent, we say less, not more.
• Withdrawn at source, withdrawn here. If a release is withdrawn, restricted or materially revised at its source, we follow it: we take the cut down or correct it.
• Release terms still apply. Any restriction attached to a release (a courtesy credit, a usage note, a sensitivity flag) travels with it and routes the item to a person.

Credits and attribution

• Every cut carries the source and the credit: on screen, in the caption, or both.
• Credits are never removed or rewritten. On screen they are only tightened to fit; the full attribution (photographer or videographer, unit and source) stays in our metadata and is available on request.
• A missing or wrong credit is treated as an error, and fixing it takes priority over everything else in the corrections queue.
• We do not use seals, crests, insignia or lockups that could pass for an official government mark, and our disclaimer travels with every profile, page and long-form description.

Separating record from framing

The official record and our framing of it are kept visibly separate. The source lockup and credit line identify what came from the release; the hook slug, the "what this is" line and the "why it matters" line are ours.

Framing does not alter the record. A slug may be deadpan, but it never contradicts the caption, invents a detail, or implies something the footage does not show. We do not re-time, re-order or re-cut footage in a way that changes what happened, and we do not present archive footage as current or current footage as archive.

Sensitive footage

Strikes, interdictions, rescues, casualties and anything involving injury or loss of life route to our Situation Room segment and to a human reviewer before anything is packaged, however strong the footage is.

• The tone is restrained. Meme language, comic slugs and music cues that trivialize harm are never used.
• We do not identify people beyond what the release itself identifies, and we do not speculate about the fate of anyone shown.
• We blur, crop or hold material where showing it would add harm without adding understanding.
• Deadpan is for the routine. It is never for tragedy.

Curation, AI and the human review gate

In short: API Automations delivers the feed. People curate, frame and approve everything we publish, and nothing publishes without passing the review gate.

API Automations delivers our source feeds under license. Our editors select, curate and frame every segment and narrative from them by hand.

Every cut is source-aware and release-checked before distribution: it carries its source and credit line, its release status is confirmed, and a person reviews it against the underlying record. A person, not a system, is accountable for what appears.

• We do not use generative tools to create, extend or alter what footage shows. No synthetic footage, no generated people, no altered uniforms, insignia or equipment.
• Source data is not used to train, test or improve any AI system outside the scope of its license.
• If you find a detail with no support, or a credit that does not match the release, report it under corrections. We treat it as a review-gate failure, not an isolated typo.

Nonpartisan framing

Nothing to Report does not endorse, oppose, rate or recommend any candidate, party, campaign, ballot measure or elected official, and we do not accept sponsorship from candidates, campaigns, parties or political action committees.

Covering a release is not a judgment about the policy behind it, and the prominence we give a release reflects what it shows, not whom it favors. Nonpartisan does not mean every claim gets equal weight: where the record plainly shows something, we say so.

Editorial independence

In short: partners and sponsors can buy placement and distribution. They cannot buy coverage, framing, favorable treatment or advance review.

Our editorial work operates independently of Show Me Television's sales and business-development functions. No sponsor, partner, licensee or advertiser dictates what we publish unless that involvement is disclosed in the item itself.

What a commercial relationship does not buy

• Influence over which releases we cover, or how prominently.
• Review of, or approval over, a cut before publication.
• Removal, softening or delay of material, including material about the partner.
• Any suggestion that a partner endorses, or is endorsed by, the military or the footage shown near its placement.

Conflicts of interest

People who produce or review our material disclose financial, professional, familial and political interests that a reasonable viewer would want weighed, and step back from material where such an interest would bear on the judgment being made. Where a conflict is disclosed but the material still merits publication, we publish the disclosure with it.

Partner, affiliate and sponsorship disclosure

Paid partnerships, sponsorships and affiliate links are disclosed in the item itself, at the point a viewer encounters them, using the platform's paid-partnership label where one exists, in line with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's Endorsement Guides. We include such a link only where the product or service meets the standards we apply to our own work; a commercial relationship never converts into a recommendation we would not otherwise make.

Our relationships with Show Me Television (owner and operator), API Automations (data and technology) and Civic Forecast (featured narrative partner) are disclosed on our homepage. We do not sell user-level data, and we do not run surveillance advertising on this site.

Corrections and updates

When we get something wrong, we fix it and say that we fixed it. We do not silently edit a published claim into a different one, and corrections stay attached to the item.

Some platforms do not allow a published video to be edited. There, we pin a correction in the comments or the caption, or remove the post and republish it with a correction note.

Reporting an error

Email contact@showmetelevision.com with:

1. a link to the post or page;
2. what is wrong, and what it should say;
3. a source, if you have one (a link to the official release, a unit page, a byline).

We aim to acknowledge within five business days and to tell you what we did, or why we did not act. Credit fixes are handled first, and anything with a release-status problem comes down while it is checked.

That is an editorial timeline. Requests about your personal information follow the statutory timelines in our Privacy policy.

Right of reply, takedowns and unpublishing

If you appear in, or are identifiable from, material we publish and you believe it is inaccurate, unfair or harmful, email contact@showmetelevision.com. We review it on the merits, and where a response is warranted we carry it with the material, not only in correspondence. Service members and their families can ask us to blur, crop or remove an image of them; we treat those requests as a priority.

The footage we package comes from public records we did not create. We can change how a release is presented on our surfaces, and we can stop presenting it. We cannot amend the underlying government release; that has to be sought from the unit or its public affairs office.

We unpublish rarely, because a record of what we said is part of being accountable for it. We will consider removal where material is inaccurate and cannot be corrected, where continued publication creates a concrete risk of harm to an identifiable person, or where a source withdraws the release. Copyright notices follow the process in our Terms & conditions.

Feedback, complaints and escalation

Feedback is how these standards stay honest. Questions, suggestions and complaints go to contact@showmetelevision.com. For a complaint, tell us what you are complaining about, which standard in this document you believe was not met, and what outcome you are asking for.

If our first response does not resolve it, say so and ask for escalation. The complaint is then reviewed by someone at Show Me Television who was not responsible for the material, and you will get a substantive answer rather than a restatement of the first one.

Limits of what we publish

Nothing to Report is an editorial brand. Nothing we publish is an official communication of the U.S. government, the Department of Defense or any military service, and nothing we publish is legal, financial or professional advice. For anything with operational, legal or personal consequences, go to the official source.

Changes and contact

We may revise these standards as the brand and its partnerships change. Material changes are reflected in the "last updated" date at the top of this page.

Nothing to Report is published and operated by Show Me Television, LLC, Los Angeles, California. Its postal address is in our Privacy policy. Editorial questions, corrections, replies and complaints: contact@showmetelevision.com.