Hearst Television

New York, New York, United States • Founded in 1887 • Trust Project news partner since September 2017

Hearst Television owns and operates local television and radio stations serving 26 media markets across 39 states reaching more than 21 million U.S. television households.

Through its partnership with nearly all of the major networks, Hearst Television distributes national content over nearly 70 video channels including programming from ABC, NBC, CBS, CW, MY Net, MeTV, This TV, Estrella and more. Hearst Television has been honored with numerous awards for distinguished journalism, industry innovation, and community service.

Hearst Television is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hearst Communications. Its major interests include cable television networks such as A&E, History, Lifetime and ESPN. Hearst Communications also owns several newspapers such as the Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle and Times Union (Albany, New York); and nearly 250 magazine editions around the world, including Cosmopolitan, ELLE, Men's Health and Car and Driver. The company was founded by William Randolph Hearst in 1887 as an owner of newspapers, and the Hearst family remains involved in Hearst Television’s management as the owners of the privately held Hearst Corporation.

Barbara Maushard – Senior Vice President, News, Hearst Television
Paige Harrison – Vice President, News, Hearst Television
Ernesto Mourelo – Vice President, Digital News, Hearst Television

Best Practices Policies

Hearst Television is the parent organization of multiple news properties guiding their overall best practices. These news properties then implement the shared best practices independently.

Mission

Hearst Television's purpose is based on service, with an aim to provide quality news and information to the local television markets that it serves. Hearst Television says it is passionate about truthful, independent, fair and non-biased reporting of stories and issues that impact the communities it serves. Hearst Television stations work to be leaders in the markets they serve.

Ethics

Hearst Television news platforms strive to find the truth, maintain independence, ensure accuracy and report with ethics. As part of its ethics policy, the news platforms of Hearst are committed to checking facts, questioning information, providing context and remaining transparent with its reporting, affiliations and potential conflicts of interest. It operates independently and without influence of outside organizations or internal pressures.

Ownership & Funding

Hearst Television, and its parent organization Hearst Corporation, is privately owned by the Hearst family and managed by a board of trustees. It is a multinational corporation, diversified into television, magazines, newspapers, trade publications, online media, real estate, finance and more. Hearst Television affiliates operate with editorial independence.

Diverse Voices

Hearst Television does not discriminate based on age, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation or disabilities. Hearst Television says it believes differences among its teams allow those teams to offer relevant, reflective and meaningful news coverage to the communities they serve in its 26 different local television markets.

Corrections

Hearst Television says its platforms are committed to accuracy and transparency in reporting. Once mistakes are identified, the policy states changes are quickly made to acknowledge and address errors. Stories published to their platform websites note when a correction has been made.

Unnamed Sources

Hearst Television says it does not rely single sources and avoids using unnamed sources unless necessary to protect the source from the threat of retaliation.

The Trust Project

The Trust Project is an international consortium of news organizations building standards of transparency and working with technology platforms to affirm and amplify journalism’s commitment to transparency, accuracy, inclusion and fairness so that the public can make informed news choices. It was founded and is led by award-winning journalist Sally Lehrman.

Our Funders

Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist, was our original funder, through the Trustworthy Journalism Initiative of Craig Newmark Philanthropies. Google followed with their financial support. Our funders also have included Democracy Fund, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Facebook. Funders. Trust Project policies and the Trust Indicators are shaped and enforced independently from our funding sources.