Our Commitment: We’re For You

We’re for you. It’s a statement we introduce today, but what does it really mean? For us at The Advertiser, it sums up — in three short words — what we strive to achieve every day.

Trust is a two-way street.

It’s built over time. It’s not easily won.

As Editor and Deputy Editor, we are entrusted to continue a conversation between The Advertiser and its loyal readers that has endured 160 years.

In the next few months many a politician will be doing a great deal of talking and dishing out a great deal of spin as we march towards a federal election.

Much of what they say will be true; much will be their version of the truth - look no further than the debate over the River Murray – and some will be plain wrong.

Which makes this a moment to reflect on what you can trust The Advertiser to do as you make the choices that will decide who leads our state and our nation.

Matt Deighton, Editor The Advertiser and Jessica Leo-Kelton, Deputy Editor The Advertiser and Sunday Mail.

You can trust us to ask the questions you want answered.

You can trust us to test the claims and counter-claims.

You can trust us to focus on the policies that will most affect you, your family and your hip-pocket.

You can trust us to give you the information that will enable you to make the best and most informed decision you can.

You can trust us to break the stories that people don’t want told and trust us to hold authority to account.

You can trust us to be balanced.

You can trust us to get to the truth.

This is the contract that underpins the relationship between all good newspapers and the communities they serve.

In recent years, how you access your newspaper has changed in ways that seemed almost fanciful a few years ago and we are all participants in a communication and information revolution, which runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

But in all that change one thing that has not changed is that fundamental contract between this newspaper and the people it lives for - its readers.

Every single decision we make, every single day must pass through this one filter; what does this mean for our readers? Unlike the digital giants that revolutionised access to information but have no physical presence or fail to employ reporters in real streets or real communities, The Advertiser has lived in the same suburbs, the same city and the same state as its readers - and you can trust we always will.

This newspaper is written, sub edited, printed, photographed and published online by people living in the very same city as you.

We have the same desires, hopes, dreams and expectations about our future as you do.

We want to leave this place better than we found it, for our children and their children’s sake.

We love SA every bit as much as you do.

We share the same energy bill concerns, worry about the same health issues in our fractured system, want to see our kids get the best education they can, want this state to stand on its own two feet and, while we want our young people to see the world, want them to have the opportunities to stay and build their lives here if they choose.

We want to see our regions flourish and ensure the rhetoric and the promises match the reality. And we never want to bemoan.

We want to celebrate all that is great about our state, its people and its potential. We want to get excited when one of us “does good”.

We want to immerse ourselves in the eclectic mix of culture, the arts and sport which makes this state such a growing annual tourism destination for so many.

Most of all, we want our reporters to be your voice.

We trust our team of sports experts to break the stories that matter before anyone else. The same way we trust our courts, political, investigations, business and urban affairs teams to be the most fearless and informed news breakers.

And you can trust us to always be a campaigning paper.

With far and away the biggest newsroom in the state, we objectively identify injustices or areas where the powerful have failed us and through tough journalism we work to right those wrongs. And through that grit and tenacity, we get results.

Our Your Right to Know series has been an all-out assault on secrecy across all levels of government and the judiciary, forcing law changes and exposing misuse of public money and maladministration.

We campaigned and won to get our fair share of water from the upstream states for the Murray-Darling. And believe us, we will not rest until this is again assured.

We campaigned hard for defence contracts and the SA Space Agency, and are now determined to ensure the state does not squander the opportunities that come with a once in a generation, $90 billion investment.

We believe South Australia is the greatest state on earth.

And you can trust our news will never be fake. It will never be insincere. And it will never be contrary to what we know to be the facts.

Because The Advertiser lives for South Australia and its people. It always has and it always will.

And that is our commitment…. We’re for You.