Our Mission
The Ethics Reporter exists to serve retail investors, regulatory accountability advocates, and citizens who believe that financial markets should be fair, transparent, and well-regulated. We provide in-depth coverage of market structure, regulatory actions, and the political relationships that shape financial policy — coverage that is rarely available in mainstream financial media with commercial relationships to the industry.
Our Standards
We attribute all factual claims to verifiable public sources. We label opinion as opinion. We correct errors promptly. We accept no advertising from financial industry participants. We protect source confidentiality. We report the documented record, not rumor or speculation. We apply the same editorial standards to every firm and individual we cover, regardless of their size or political affiliation.
Our Topics
Our coverage focuses on: payment for order flow and market structure; SEC and FINRA enforcement; financial industry political spending; retail investor protection; market maker practices; and the regulatory frameworks that govern American financial markets. We believe these topics are systematically under-covered relative to their importance to ordinary Americans.
Supporting Independent Financial Journalism
The Ethics Reporter is reader-funded. We believe that independent financial accountability journalism — journalism without financial industry advertising relationships — is more important now than ever. If you find our coverage valuable, we encourage you to support it. Sustained independent journalism is essential to public accountability in financial markets.