Editorial Policy
Last updated · August 2026
Our Mission
Saigon Sentinel is an independent, US-based news platform built for the Vietnamese-American diaspora. We exist to eliminate the language barrier between global news and our community — with reporting, original analysis, and practical guides in both Vietnamese and English.
Our coverage goes beyond translation. Every article is framed through a diaspora lens: how does this story affect Vietnamese Americans — from tech workers in San Jose to nail salon owners in Houston, from students awaiting H-1B decisions to retirees following developments in their home country?
What We Publish
Plain-language reports written directly from official documents — USCIS and DHS announcements, IRS notices, Federal Register rules, state and city press releases. What changed, when it takes effect, who it affects, and what readers need to do, with a link to the official document.
When a story has already been reported well, we don’t rewrite it. We link the original and write the piece it doesn’t contain: what the event means for Vietnamese Americans, with the mechanism, the affected segments, and the history spelled out. If we have nothing to add beyond what the original already says, we don’t publish.
Fact-grounded explainers of the stories in the news right now, written for immigrants and everyday Americans alike — what happened, why it matters, and what it means for you and your wallet. We’re all busy, and some stories only make sense if you’ve followed them from the start — miss that, and it’s easy to draw a misguided conclusion about why something is happening. Our explainers exist to bridge that gap: they give a reader who’s unfamiliar with the story its full context, not just the latest development, so the conclusion they draw is the right one.
Practical, accessible explainers on topics that matter to our community — immigration processes, financial literacy, healthcare navigation, cultural history, education planning, and more.
How We Keep Errors Out
A confident sentence and a true one read exactly alike, and a reader who cannot easily check the English original has no way to tell them apart. That asymmetry is the risk this newsroom takes most seriously, and we work it in layers:
1 · Source-Grounded Writing
Every article is written against the documents and reporting we cite and link, and against nothing else — not memory, not background impression, not what a subject is generally assumed to involve. Statistics, quotes, names and outcomes that are not in the source do not go in the article. If the source does not say it, neither do we.
2 · Line-By-Line Checking
Before publication, every article is checked against the material it was written from: each concrete claim — numbers, names, dates, the text of a rule — traced back to the source that supports it, citations confirmed to point where they say they do, the Vietnamese and English read against each other so an institution or legal term does not acquire a meaning in one that it lacks in the other, and any phrasing that has drifted too close to a source’s own wording rewritten. An article that doesn’t come through that intact is held back, not published.
3 · Editorial Oversight
The Editor-in-Chief sets the standards that govern every article, chooses the subject and writes each piece, reads it against its sources before publication, audits published output, and handles reader-reported corrections within 24 hours. Nothing is published until it has cleared the checking above.
Despite these measures, no newsroom is perfect, and ours is a small one. Mistranslations, subtle factual shifts and misjudged framing are all still possible. Every article carries its sources as a matter of transparency, so anything in it can be checked against the original record. Errors reported to us are corrected within 24 hours.
Editorial Voice & Standards
Our editorial guidelines enforce a consistent voice across all content:
- Non-partisan: We write openly for the diaspora, but we take no party line and endorse no candidate. As a US-based outlet, we refer to Vietnam in the third person, and we do not adopt the framing of any government — Vietnamese, American, or otherwise.
- Anti-propaganda: Vietnamese state media language is explicitly banned and replaced with neutral, factual phrasing.
- No forced connections: We do not shoehorn a Vietnam or diaspora angle into stories where one does not naturally exist. If a story is about American domestic policy with no real diaspora impact, we say so.
- Community specificity: When we discuss diaspora impact, we name specific community segments — “H-1B visa holders in tech,” “Gulf Coast fishing communities,” “second-generation college students” — rather than defaulting to stereotypes.
Independence
Saigon Sentinel maintains strict editorial independence. We have no political affiliations, party endorsements, or government funding. Advertising and sponsored content, if any, is always clearly separated from editorial content. No advertiser, sponsor, or external entity influences our editorial decisions or article selection.
Corrections & Feedback
We take accuracy seriously. If you spot an error in our reporting, please email [email protected] with the article title and a description of the issue. We aim to review and correct errors within 24 hours.
Audio Narration
Every article is available as audio in Vietnamese, read by an automated voice. It’s there for readers who find small text on a screen hard going, and for anyone busy enough that listening fits the day better than reading does. Our pieces tend to run long, and the audio genuinely helps get through them.
This policy applies to all content published on saigonsentinel.com. For questions about our editorial practices, data handling, or to report concerns, contact us at [email protected].