Ethics & Standards

When Crimes Are Legal is an independent newsroom covering Washtenaw County, Michigan and the towns within roughly a 20-mile radius of Ann Arbor — including Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, Ypsilanti Township, Saline, Chelsea, Dexter, Pinckney, Manchester, Milan, Whitmore Lake, and the surrounding townships (Pittsfield, Scio, Superior, Ann Arbor, Northfield, Salem, Lodi, Freedom, Sylvan, Lyndon, Dexter, Webster). Stories with statewide or national reach are still fair game when they touch the area we live in.

Every factual claim on this site ties to a document, a public record, or a named on-record source. Anonymous sources are used only when the information is otherwise unavailable and the risk to the source is real. We tell you when a source is anonymous and why.

We publish primary documents whenever we legally can. Bystander names, addresses, contact details, and other private data are redacted. Metadata is stripped before upload.

When we get something wrong we fix it, mark the article as corrected, and log the change publicly on our corrections page. Silent edits are not permitted.

We pay for information when the law requires it — FOIA fees, court record fees, database subscriptions, and other public-records costs. We will always disclose our relationship to a story and to any party named in it. WCAL may also accept reader donations tied to reporting on specific subjects; when that happens, the donation and its scope are disclosed in the story itself.

We call out power. We will use the maximum level of shaming, process, and punishment the law allows — and every legal tool that makes the corrupt uncomfortable. Boycotts of businesses tied to corrupt officials. Neighborhood-level accountability projects. Public-facing archives of their conduct. The people we cover have hidden behind legal shields for decades; the point of WCAL is not to reform them. It is to make them such a severe example that no one dares repeat the behavior.

We stay on black-and-white scandals — stolen public money, elder abuse, abuse of office — because those are the fights worth taking, including the lawsuits they may invite. Every extra spotlight is fuel.

Our tip page does not log IP addresses and does not require identifying information. We publish what we can and can't promise about anonymity. Sensitive material should come through Signal or Proton.

Comments are off here by design. Audience discussion happens on YouTube, X, Rumble, Facebook, and TikTok, where those platforms carry their own moderation and legal liability. Feedback and disputes come directly to the newsroom via the contact page.

If you believe we've reported something incorrectly, contact us directly. We would rather run a correction than defend a mistake in court.