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Employers should provide their employees with the proper resources to improve and be well versed in their specialties. As the human resources department of a company controls the training resources that are available to employees, employees should be sufficiently satisfied with the opportunities for improvement that the department provides and the department should be ranked highly against similarly sized companies.

Every business should provide their employees with benefits to improve their working life and the health of themselves and their family. Standard benefits that should be offered include health insurance, life insurance, dental insurance, paid time off or sick time, paid medical leave, education assistance, and 401k. Employees should have a good sentiment around the perks and benefits their company provides, and the benefits should rank highly against similarly sized companies.

A healthy work environment provides several perks such as increasing productivity and creativity and boosting motivation and company morale. Employees should be comfortable working with their peers and feel that they have an adequate amount of freedom to improve. As a result, a company should cultivate a work environment that is highly rated by both employees and against similar companies, and employees should also be pleased with the company's leadership and the opportunities they provide.

Higher salaries and compensation allow employees to be more invested in their jobs and feel that they are valued by the company. It also allowed companies to expect that employees are more productive and that they produce high-quality work. As a result, employers should provide salaries that rate them highly in comparison to similarly-sized companies and employees should be satisfied with their compensation.

Allowing employees to work from home, gives them the opportunity to work in a more comfortable setting and have fewer distractions. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, being able to work from home is important to keep safe and still be productive. Thus, employees should be satisfied with the company's response and leadership during the pandemic, and a minimal number of employees should be expected to work in the office.

A news outlet's primary allegiance should be to the public, and conflicts of interest threaten the accuracy of news. Journalists should never be stakeholders in their reporting and must disclose any unavoidable conflicts.

Responsible journalists should be impartial to the people they cover, so should not accept any special treatment from them, especially from political parties or candidates.

Paying sources for information, also known as checkbook journalism, is detrimental to the independence of news outlets and threatens the veracity of that information. Sources may be incentivized to embellish stories to increase their pay, people may be motivated to stage or invent dramatic news, and journalists may be less likely to search for conflicting information if they've already paid for a source.

Advertisements and sponsored content on news outlet websites that look and feel like journalism should be clearly marked, as it's very easy for users to confuse them with actual editorial content.

For a news source to be independent, their own photographers should produce the photos in the paper. This also ensures that the events are verified and the photos are accurate and unedited.

The publisher must clearly distinguish news and opinion in the paper and website. There should be no ambiguity about whether an article is in the news or opinion section.

The publication has rigorous processes for verifying all information before publishing. This includes having multiple people review each story.

Publications should have a corrections page that links to corrected articles with an explanation of what was changed. In addition, the corrected article should have a note explaining the correction.

Stories should use neutral language where appropriate. Some stories will naturally evoke certain emotions like pride or sadness, but journalists should not intentionally bait these.

The publication considers a wide range of opinions, both in the people they interview for their news articles and opinion writers.

Judges stories on how many anonymous sources are used. Fewer are better.

Excluding breaking news stories, articles must have credible studies and statistics that are linked to them.

Interviews are conducted with various people. This includes eyewitnesses at the sites of breaking stories, experts, and people with diverse views on new policy proposals or studies.

Original photos and/or videos are provided to better show the reader the site of a breaking story.

Providing high-quality news at an affordable price is important for the average user. News outlets should offer news subscriptions that are comparable to the average price for a news subscription, such that the general audience can afford their subscription.

The layout of articles in a newspaper makes the article more interesting for the reader. A good article layout can keep them on their toes and make them excited to continue reading. Hence, newspapers should not follow a standard article layout, but should instead alter the format to highlight important details and make the article more understandable for the average reader.

Writing news articles that are understandable for the general audience is vital for a publication, simply so that anyone can read their articles. News outlets should not cater their articles for a specific demographic, but should instead use language and visuals that are clear for someone with an average education and demographic background.

Graphics, visuals, and videos all enhance the degree to which an article can be appealing to a reader. Not only can they pull them in, but they can also add to the article, and express points that cannot be properly expressed in words. Publications should use several relevant graphics, visuals, and videos in their articles, and alter the form they appear in, whether it be relevant Twitter posts, up-close photographs, and original drawings.

Ads are a major form of income for multiple different news outlets, but they can also take away from the reader's experience if they are not placed in appropriate locations or are too distracting. News outlets should format ads, on both their website and their paper (if applicable), such that they are in places that naturally flow with the user's read, there are a minimal number of them, and so that they do not take away from the user's experience.

A good user interface can make it easy for users to navigate a site and more likely to continue reading news on the publication's site. It also provides them the necessary information to understand the quality of the news and if they would be interested in reading an article. A publication's website should have clearly defined news sections and headings, and have article previews that include a relevant visual, a clear title, and a brief summary that gives the user an overview of what the article discusses.