Terms of Use

Center for Health Journalism Digital has a Community Code which we ask all members to read and follow.

The CHJ community is an editorially independent content site and place of learning and sharing for people who care about health news and information. The editors of this site reserve the right to delete content that does not further this conversation. We welcome your participation in this community by commenting, sharing your work and member profile or posting blog entries.  All published content is pre-reviewed by our editorial team. We encourage you to consider the following guidelines to help create a productive space.

Be civil: Personal attacks and inappropriate language will be deleted.

Be truthful: We encourage discourse and disagreement, however, we will not allow content that we know to be objectively false or misleading to remain on the site. We also reserve the right to delete unsubstantiated claims and rumors.

Do not plagiarize: Only post your own work. If someone else owns the copyright (such as your newspaper or media outlet), only post content with their approval. If you excerpt and quote from others' work, do so with proper attribution and hyperlinks to the original material when available. For more information on quoting and copying, read the Electronic Frontier Foundation's interpretation of fair use.

Do not violate confidentiality laws: As a health journalism site, we are sensitive to patients' privacy. If you are posting specific information about peoples' health, make sure you have their explicit permission as required by your professional code.

Do not solicit: Our member posts and comments are meant for conversations, not advertisements. We will delete spam and commercial content promoting products or services. Please keep the community in mind and share your content accordingly.

Use your real name and email address to register: While you do not need to share your contact information with the community, we want this to be a community of real people. We allow anonymous comments, but will closely review any unsigned content on the site.

Stay on topic: We reserve the right to delete comments and hyperlinks unrelated to topic threads.

If you come across anything on the site you believe should be reviewed, or if you have questions about participating in the CenterforHealthJournalism.org community, please log in and contact us at editor@centerforhealthjournalism.org. You can also find more information about Center for HealthJournalism Digital (CenterforHealthJournalism.org) in Frequently Asked Questions.

Your use of this site constitutes your agreement to follow and be bound by these Terms of Use.

Your use of this site is at your own risk. Neither Center for Health Journalism Digital nor its affiliated or related entities or content providers shall be liable to any person or entity for any direct or indirect loss, damage (whether actual, consequential, punitive, special or otherwise), injury, claim, or liability of any kind or character whatsoever based upon or resulting from the use of or inability to use this site, or any information or materials provided on the site. All liability of any kind is expressly disclaimed. If you are dissatisfied with the site or any materials or information on the site, or with any of these Terms of Use, your sole and exclusive remedy is to discontinue using the site.

The law applicable to the interpretation and construction of these Terms of Use and to the use of the site and any information provided on the site, shall be the laws of the State of California, USA, without regard to conflict of laws. All proceedings relating to the site, or these Terms of Use, shall be brought only in the state or federal courts of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California, USA.