Editorial standards
These are the rules Aftercare Report works to. If we break one, tell us.
What we publish
- Briefs are short items: what happened, in our words, with a short read on why it matters, labelled as our judgment, and a link to the original source. The read reasons from the facts in the story and never adds a fact, a figure or a forecast of its own.
- Analysis is our reading of a development: what changed, what is known, what is not. It uses several sources and carries a named author.
- Opinion argues a position. It is always labelled, always has a named author, and its facts are sourced like any other story. Opinion can be pointed and can be uncomfortable for the people it is about. It cannot be false.
- The Aftercare Briefing is the Monday email and page that gathers the week’s stories.
Attribution
Every fact traces to a source we list at the bottom of the story, and the original source is linked first. When we rely on another outlet’s reporting, we name it in the text. A company’s announcement is the company’s claim, and we say so. Forecasts and allegations are labelled, with who made them. If we could not confirm something, we say we have not confirmed it, or we do not run it.
In our own words
We summarize and link. We do not copy. Quotations are short, in quotation marks and attributed. We do not reuse other publishers’ images or headlines.
The checks every story passes
Before a story is published it is checked against its sources, checked by a second, independent system, and reviewed against these standards. Analysis and opinion get further review, including a reviewer whose job is to look for the error, the spin and the side we missed. Any edit after review means the checks run again.
Aftercare Report specifically
We report on the industry, not on individual deaths. We do not cover, name or describe an individual death, funeral or memorial as news, and we do not run obituary-style content. We report on rules and money. We do not give legal, financial or insurance advice. Licensing, board and regulatory stories cite the regulator and the date a rule takes effect, and where it matters we say which province, state or country it applies in. Preneed and insurance stories name the fund, trust or product and its date. Language around cremation, death and grief is kept plain, accurate and free of euphemism or sentiment: this is a trade publication written for professionals, not a memorial or consumer site.
Where a story comes from and where it is placed
Every story has one topic and one or more regions. Canada is a region, so you can follow what matters where you are. Consolidation, regulation and the other sections are topics.
Images
Aftercare Report carries no photographs or illustrations of any kind, on any page, including AI-generated images. This is a deliberate choice: images of candles, caskets, chapels or gatherings sit in a consumer-comfort register this trade publication is not written for, and there is no way to illustrate an industry story about a real regulatory or ownership change without implying it depicts a real event. Every page is typographic.
Interests we disclose
Aftercare Report is published by Christopher Ross, who also runs thisismyurl.com, a web and WordPress business. The only advertising on this site is labelled house advertising for that business. It has no say over what we cover, and we do not cover the publisher’s business as news. If that ever changes, we will say so on the story.
Independence
Advertisers and sponsors have no say over what we select or how we write about it. Sponsored content, if we ever run it, will be labelled as such and kept apart from editorial. We disclose any interest an author or the site has in a story.
Corrections
We fix errors openly. See corrections.