TAPinto.net is a network of more than 90 franchised online local news and digital marketing platforms in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Florida, with more than 20,000,000 readers during the past year. Each site is franchised to a local owner/publisher and provides original objective daily local news reporting.  Current franchisees include business and business development executives, journalists, public relations professionals, hardcopy newspapers, nonprofits and universities.

TAPinto.net  was founded in October, 2008 by Michael and Lauryn Shapiro, who sought to provide their town’s residents with an all-online, objective, independent, daily local newspaper, and Michael Shapiro is the majority owner.  Today, TAPinto covers more than 100 towns in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Florida.  

TAPinto is proud to support many charitable causes including the American Heart Association, Relay for Life, and Dress for Success Northern New Jersey, among others.  TAPinto's executives, employees and franchisees are members of dozens of community organizations including Rotary and the Chamber of Commerce.  

TAPinto offers content marketing, native advertising, social media marketing, exclusive sponsorships, branded content opportunities, email marketing, and traditional online advertising.

TAPinto is available on desktop, mobile, and tablet, and also has a TAPinto App for Android and iPhone.

For more information on marketing on TAPinto, click here.

For more information on franchising a TAPinto site in your area, please click here.

We are always searching for ways to give our franchisees the tools to make their reporting and coverage transparent, independent and objective, while updating our policies to ensure that all of our sites follow the highest ethical standards for journalism. 

Here is what we have done to continue to build trust with our readers:

SPJ Code of Ethics

The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) has served as the preeminent professional association for journalists since 1909.  SPJ publishes a strict code of ethics.  All TAPinto sites are required to adhere to the SPJ Code of Ethics.  You can read more about the Code of Ethics here.

No Editorializing 

While editorial and opinion have their place, TAPinto's mission is focused on reporting the news.  To protect the integrity of reporting, TAPinto maintains a policy that prohibits our franchisees and journalists from engaging in editorialization and opinion journalism. 

No Endorsement of, or Contributions to, Local Political Candidates

Our TAPinto franchises provide readers with important coverage of local government and politics.  To ensure quality, unbiased coverage, as well as the appearance thereof, we adopted a policy that prohibits franchisees and their owners from making endorsements of, or otherwise publicly supporting, their local political candidates in any manner.  We also adopted a policy that prohibits all TAPinto franchisees and their owners from contributing to political candidates running for local office in their town(s).  We also have strongly recommended to all TAPinto franchisees and their owners and site editors that they refrain from making endorsements of, or otherwise publicly supporting, regional, state and national candidates or elected officials, including, but not limited to, on personal or public social media, via lawn signs, or otherwise.

Disclosure of Ownership

All of our sites are bound by a disclosure policy so our readers know the ownership of each TAPinto franchise.

Disclosure of Perceived or Potential Conflicts of Interest

We require that should a reporter, editor, or franchise owner be a member of the group that is the subject of the story or have a financial or business relationship with the subject of the story, disclosure is prominently noted in the story through an Editor’s Note.

Clear Advertising Disclosures

Lines between news content and advertising at times have become blurred as online news organizations test new advertising products and business models.  All of our content advertising and sponsorship is clearly and conspicuously marked so readers know if they're looking at paid content. 

As always, we welcome feedback from TAPinto readers to help us continue to improve and grow.

Correction Policy

When TAPinto publishes a story and later find out there was a factual mistake/error in it (including misquoting someone), we will publish a corrected version of the story as soon as possible.  This creates greater transparency regarding corrections and creates more accountability with our readers.

If an article needs to be corrected, we will correct the mistake and mark an *asterisk* at the end of the corrected sentence. 

We will then include an italicized "Editor's note" at the bottom (for minor corrections) or the top (for major corrections) of the story with an explanation of the correction. 

For example: Editor's Note: John Symth's name was spelled incorrectly in an earlier version of this story.  

Fact-Checking Policy

All stories are fact-checked prior to publication. If you feel a story includes incorrect facts, please contact the editor of the site using the contact information in the table above.