Editorial Standard BTM-001
Our Standards. Our Methods. Our Accountability.
Artificial intelligence is changing journalism.
It is also changing who has the ability to participate in journalism.
Tools and capabilities that once required teams of researchers, transcriptionists, editors, designers, data analysts, and production staff are increasingly accessible to independent journalists and small publications.
The Maine Mirror uses artificial intelligence.
We believe our readers deserve to know that plainly.
We also believe transparency requires more than placing an “AI-assisted” label somewhere on a website. Readers deserve to understand how these tools are used, what they are used for, what they are not used for, what safeguards govern their use, and who is ultimately responsible for what The Maine Mirror publishes.
That is why Artificial Intelligence & Editorial Transparency is the first standard published through Behind the Mirror, our public collection of editorial standards, methods, and accountability practices.
Our approach begins with one principle:
AI may help us investigate, understand, organize, and communicate information. It does not get to decide what is true.
The Maine Mirror remains responsible for what The Maine Mirror publishes.
Why The Maine Mirror Uses AI
The Maine Mirror is an independent publication without the staffing and resources of a large institutional newsroom.
Artificial intelligence can expand what a small operation is capable of doing.
Depending on the circumstances, AI-assisted tools may help us:
- organize and examine large collections of public records;
- summarize lengthy documents for further review;
- identify names, dates, subjects, patterns, and potential connections within records;
- search and compare information across multiple documents;
- organize timelines and datasets;
- transcribe audio and video;
- develop questions and research directions;
- assist with drafting and restructuring written material;
- improve grammar, clarity, readability, and organization;
- develop headlines, summaries, descriptions, and other editorial material;
- create graphics, illustrations, featured images, and other visual content;
- produce accessible audio presentations of complicated source material; and
- assist with other research, administrative, creative, and production tasks.
These tools can dramatically reduce the amount of repetitive or technical work involved in turning complicated information into something the public can understand.
But increased capability must come with increased responsibility.
Using powerful technology does not lower our obligation to distinguish evidence from allegation, fact from inference, and authentic source material from generated content.
AI Is a Tool. It Is Not Evidence.
This distinction is fundamental to our standard.
Artificial intelligence output does not become a factual source merely because a sophisticated system produced it.
If AI summarizes a government document, the government document is the source.
If AI identifies an important passage within hundreds of pages of public records, the underlying record is the source.
If AI suggests that two events may be connected, that suggestion is a research lead—not proof of the connection.
If AI produces a factual statement that cannot be supported by reliable evidence, that statement should not be presented as established fact merely because AI generated it.
AI can help us find the trail.
Evidence must establish where that trail actually leads.
Human Editorial Responsibility
The Maine Mirror does not transfer responsibility for its journalism to artificial intelligence.
AI systems can misunderstand documents, miss important context, make incorrect assumptions, rely on outdated information, and sometimes generate convincing information that simply isn’t true.
Human beings make mistakes, too.
The existence of either possibility makes accountability more important—not less.
A human remains responsible for material published by The Maine Mirror.
AI may contribute to the process.
It does not receive the byline.
It does not assume responsibility for an error.
And it cannot make the final ethical or editorial judgment about what The Maine Mirror should publish.
That responsibility remains ours.
Sources, Interviews and Quotations
The Maine Mirror will not knowingly use artificial intelligence to fabricate a source, interview, public record, quotation, event, or factual occurrence and present it as authentic journalism.
Statements attributed as direct quotations to real people should be supported by genuine source material, such as:
- interviews;
- audio or video recordings;
- public meetings;
- emails or other correspondence;
- government records;
- court records;
- written statements; or
- other identifiable source material.
AI may assist in locating, transcribing, extracting, organizing, or analyzing those materials.
It may not turn generated dialogue into words falsely attributed to a real person.
When the exact wording of a quotation matters, the underlying source material should control.
This distinction does not prohibit the use of clearly disclosed synthetic hosts, narrators, fictional presenters, or other AI-generated creative elements. Those tools may be used to explain or present genuine source material, but they must not be represented as real sources, witnesses, interviewees, or journalists when they are not.
AI-Assisted Writing and Editing
The Maine Mirror may use artificial intelligence during the writing and editing process.
That can include brainstorming, outlining, drafting, restructuring, summarization, proofreading, grammar assistance, headline development, and improvements to clarity or readability.
The amount of assistance may vary considerably from one piece of content to another.
We do not believe the mere presence of AI assistance determines whether journalism is credible.
A human-written article can contain false information.
An AI-assisted article can accurately communicate information contained in verifiable public records.
The standard should be the evidence supporting what is published—not whether a particular sentence began with a keyboard, a transcription tool, an algorithm, or some combination of them.
The Maine Mirror therefore accepts responsibility for AI-assisted writing in the same way it accepts responsibility for content produced without AI assistance.
AI-Generated Images and Editorial Illustrations
The Maine Mirror uses artificial intelligence to create some of the featured images, article artwork, illustrations, graphics, and other visual elements that accompany our reporting.
These images serve an illustrative and editorial purpose only.
AI-generated imagery published by The Maine Mirror is never intended or presented as photographic, documentary, or evidentiary proof of the events, people, places, documents, or conduct described in our reporting.
When an article discusses an event, an AI-generated featured image may visually represent the subject or theme of that article. It does not represent itself as a photograph taken at the event.
When an article concerns a public official, government agency, controversy, investigation, or other subject, generated artwork may help visually communicate that subject. It does not establish any factual claim made in the reporting.
Most importantly:
AI-generated imagery is never evidence at The Maine Mirror.
Evidence supporting our reporting must come from the underlying sources themselves—such as public records, authentic photographs or video, recordings, correspondence, interviews, government documents, court records, datasets, or other verifiable source material.
When The Maine Mirror publishes an authentic photograph, screenshot, document, recording, video, or other material because that item itself has evidentiary significance, we will not knowingly alter it with generative AI in a way that materially changes what the evidence shows.
We also believe readers should be able to distinguish editorial artwork from documentary material. AI-generated article imagery should therefore be identified as AI-generated, AI-assisted, or editorial illustration, as appropriate.
Artificial intelligence gives a small independent publication access to visual storytelling capabilities that might otherwise require photographers, illustrators, graphic designers, or other resources.
We embrace that capability.
But we draw a firm line between illustrating a story and manufacturing proof for one.
AI can help us illustrate the reporting. It cannot create the evidence supporting it.
Synthetic Audio, Podcasts and AI Presenters
Artificial intelligence also creates new ways to make complicated information accessible.
The Maine Mirror may use technologies such as NotebookLM and similar tools to produce audio discussions, narrations, summaries, or presentations based on source material.
These tools can be especially useful when the underlying material consists of lengthy government reports, public records, legislation, meeting documents, or other information that some readers may find easier to consume in audio form.
Synthetic hosts and narrators are permitted.
They are not real journalists, witnesses, interviewees, or sources merely because their voices sound human.
When synthetic presenters could reasonably be mistaken for real participants, The Maine Mirror should clearly identify their synthetic nature.
Where practical, audiences should also be directed toward the underlying materials upon which the presentation is based.
The audio presentation helps explain the source.
It does not replace the source.
When We Will Disclose AI Use
Transparency should help readers understand our journalism.
It should not become meaningless disclosure for its own sake.
The Maine Mirror does not believe every routine use of technological assistance requires a disclaimer on every article.
For example, using an AI-enabled tool to correct spelling, organize notes, search documents, brainstorm potential headlines, or improve sentence structure generally does not change the underlying nature of the evidence being reported.
Prominent disclosure becomes more important when AI materially creates something the audience experiences or when failing to disclose its use could cause a reasonable person to misunderstand what is authentic.
Examples may include:
- AI-generated featured images and editorial illustrations;
- realistic AI-generated imagery;
- synthetic audio hosts;
- synthetic voices;
- AI-generated video;
- digital reenactments;
- simulated conversations;
- realistic representations of events that did not actually occur as depicted; or
- other generated material that could reasonably be mistaken for authentic documentary content.
Our goal is meaningful transparency.
Readers should understand what they’re looking at or listening to without being buried beneath disclosures that provide no meaningful information.
What AI Cannot Replace
Technology can dramatically expand human capability.
It cannot assume human responsibility.
Artificial intelligence must not replace our obligation to:
Ask questions.
Examine evidence.
Distinguish allegations from established facts.
Seek context.
Consider competing explanations.
Treat real people fairly.
Correct material mistakes.
Protect sensitive information when circumstances warrant it.
Exercise editorial judgment.
Accept responsibility for publication.
AI can assist with many of these activities.
It cannot own the consequences of them.
We can.
Primary Sources Matter Even More in the Age of AI
The growth of artificial intelligence creates an understandable question for readers:
How do I know this is true?
Whenever legally, ethically, and practically appropriate, The Maine Mirror believes one of the strongest answers is:
Look at the evidence yourself.
Our reporting frequently involves public records and other primary-source material.
As The Maine Mirror develops its editorial practices, we will continue working toward making underlying evidence accessible whenever doing so is appropriate.
Depending on the reporting, that may include:
- FOAA responses;
- government emails;
- meeting agendas and minutes;
- government reports;
- legislation and statutes;
- policies and regulations;
- public correspondence;
- recordings;
- datasets;
- court documents; and
- other relevant primary-source material.
There will be circumstances where privacy, safety, legal restrictions, source protection, technical limitations, or other legitimate considerations prevent publication of underlying materials.
But where those concerns do not exist, we believe showing our work strengthens accountability.
Readers should not have to blindly trust artificial intelligence.
They should not have to blindly trust The Maine Mirror either.
Corrections Matter More Than Pride
Artificial intelligence can contribute to mistakes.
So can human beings.
Neither provides an excuse for leaving inaccurate information uncorrected.
When credible information indicates that something The Maine Mirror published may be materially inaccurate, the appropriate response is to examine the evidence.
If we got something wrong, we should correct it.
If additional evidence materially changes the understanding of a story, we should consider updating it.
If a disagreement concerns interpretation rather than an objectively incorrect fact, we should distinguish between the two.
A separate Behind the Mirror editorial standard will establish our procedures for corrections, clarifications, updates, and reader challenges.
But the principle underlying that future standard begins here:
Being accountable matters more than being unwilling to admit a mistake.
This Standard Will Evolve
Artificial intelligence is developing extraordinarily quickly.
The tools available next year may raise questions that today’s technology does not.
The Maine Mirror intends to continue experimenting with technology that can improve public-interest journalism, increase accessibility, examine complicated information, and expand what independent journalism can accomplish.
We also intend to learn.
That means this standard may change.
When experience, evidence, technological developments, reader feedback, or our own mistakes reveal a better way of doing something, improvement should not be viewed as an admission of failure.
Improvement is part of accountability.
Material revisions to this standard will therefore be reflected through updated version information.
Readers should be able to see not only what our standards are today, but that we are willing to make them better tomorrow.
Behind the Mirror
The Maine Mirror asks government agencies, elected officials, institutions, organizations, and other people entrusted with public responsibility to be transparent about how they operate.
We believe that expectation has to apply to us, too.
That’s why we’re publishing Behind the Mirror.
This growing collection of editorial standards will explain how The Maine Mirror approaches sourcing, verification, corrections, public records, requests for comment, artificial intelligence, editorial independence, conflicts, privacy, and other responsibilities that come with publishing information in the public interest.
We will not ask readers to believe we are perfect.
We aren’t.
We will ask readers to examine our work, examine our evidence, challenge us when warranted, and hold us to the standards we publicly establish.
Accountability includes us.
Our AI Standard, in One Sentence
AI may help The Maine Mirror investigate, understand, organize, and communicate information. It does not get to decide what is true—and responsibility for what The Maine Mirror publishes remains human.
Editorial Standard Information
Title: Artificial Intelligence & Editorial Transparency
Standard Number: BTM-001
Version: 1.0
Effective Date: August 2026
Series: Behind the Mirror — Editorial Standards
Applies To: The Maine Mirror editorial content and associated media
Document Owner: The Maine Mirror
Status: Public Editorial Standard
Review and Revision: This standard will be reviewed periodically and when material developments in technology, journalism practices, or The Maine Mirror’s operations warrant reconsideration. Material revisions will be reflected by an updated version number and effective date.
Behind the Mirror is The Maine Mirror’s public editorial standards initiative: Our Standards. Our Methods. Our Accountability.
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