About

The R13 Tribune is an online news magazine owned and published by R13 Multimedia. R13 Multimedia also owns and produces the related investigative and public-affairs podcast: Law, Disorder, and Faith, Texas Size: You Be The Judge. Together, the Tribune and the podcast form the journalism and public-information arm of R13 Multimedia.

Its purpose is stated beneath the masthead:

Providing Knowledge to God’s Sheep So That They Will Not Perish.

That mission is rooted in the belief that people are better able to protect themselves, their families, their property, their ministries, and their communities when they have access to understandable, accurate, and usable information.

What the Name Means

R13 stands for Romans 13, the biblical passage addressing governing authority, responsibility, and accountability.

For this publication, Romans 13 is not understood only as a command that people respect authority. It also establishes that authority itself carries responsibility.

Tribune has a double meaning.

In modern usage, it describes a newspaper or public forum.

Historically, a tribune was associated with representing the interests of ordinary people before powerful institutions.

Together, the name R13 Tribune describes a faith-centered publication committed to examining the exercise of authority, making complicated records understandable, and giving people information they can use to evaluate institutions and make informed decisions for themselves.

Why Romans 13 Matters to R13 Tribune

Romans 13:3–4 teaches that governing authority should not ordinarily be a source of fear to those who are doing what is right and describes legitimate authority as serving a purpose for the good of the people.

That principle creates responsibilities on both sides.

People are called to respect lawful authority and to do what is right.

Those entrusted with authority are also expected to use that authority for good rather than as an instrument of fear, oppression, dishonesty, retaliation, or personal advantage.

That understanding is central to R13 Tribune.

We do not examine institutions because authority itself is wrong.

We examine them because authority carries responsibility.

R13 Tribune therefore asks not only whether individuals complied with authority, but also whether those exercising authority fulfilled the responsibilities that accompany it.

Our guiding principle can be stated simply:

Do what is right. Do not live in fear of legitimate authority. And expect those entrusted with authority to use it for good.

Romans 13:3–4

Authority Within the Justice System

R13 Tribune also examines the exercise of authority within the legal system.

Lawyers are not automatically government officials or state actors merely because they are attorneys. However, lawyers are officers of the legal system and occupy a special position within the administration of justice.

They participate in a court-regulated system that can profoundly affect a person’s property, liberty, family, finances, reputation, and future.

For that reason, R13 Tribune considers lawyers—along with judges, trustees, guardians, prosecutors, government lawyers, court-appointed professionals, and other participants in the justice system—to be appropriate subjects of public accountability when their professional conduct materially affects the rights of others.

The question is not whether every lawyer is “the government.”

The question is whether individuals entrusted with special professional authority and responsibilities within the justice system are exercising those responsibilities honestly, competently, ethically, and consistently with the administration of justice.

That is a Romans 13 question as much as it is a legal or professional-responsibility question.

What We Cover

R13 Tribune is organized around eleven dimensions of wellness:

These categories recognize that a person’s life cannot always be divided neatly into separate problems.

A foreclosure can affect financial, emotional, legal, occupational, and family well-being.

Bullying can affect social, emotional, physical, intellectual, and spiritual wellness.

A government decision can affect legal, political, financial, cultural, and community life.

The eleven sections allow R13 Tribune to examine those connections instead of treating every problem in isolation.

A particularly important principle for the Tribune is that these are sections, not silos. A single story may properly touch several dimensions. A foreclosure may be primarily Legal or Financial Wellness but also affect Emotional and Social Wellness. Bullying may begin under Social Wellness but involve Emotional, Physical, Intellectual, Spiritual, and Legal Wellness. A church controversy may involve Spiritual, Cultural, Financial, Legal, and Political Wellness.

R13 Tribune describes the 11 dimensions as a whole-person and whole-community reporting framework: R13 Tribune examines not just what happened to someone, but how a decision or institution affects the different parts of that person’s life.

Each section contains two principal kinds of journalism.

Informational stories explain a subject in plain language: what it is, how it works, why it matters, and what a reader can do with the information.

Investigative stories examine a record: decisions, money, institutions, documents, professional conduct, public authority, and the gap that sometimes exists between what was promised, what was represented, and what actually occurred.

The Tribune is written for people in ordinary life—families, workers, tenants, homeowners, congregants, nonprofit leaders, business owners, and neighbors.

We write to be understood.

Our Reporting Standard

R13 Tribune follows a document-first approach.

Serious reporting should distinguish among:

established facts;
court findings;
sworn testimony;
allegations;
documentary evidence;
disputed interpretations;
investigative questions;
and matters that remain unresolved.

We do not treat an allegation as a finding merely because it appears in a lawsuit, court filing, government report, professional complaint, or official record.

Likewise, when a court has made a finding, we identify it as a court finding rather than automatically presenting it as an independently established fact beyond the context of the proceeding in which it was made.

When an individual, business, government agency, lawyer, financial institution, public official, or other organization is materially criticized, R13 Tribune seeks to provide a meaningful opportunity to respond.

Our objective is not to manufacture a predetermined conclusion.

It is to assemble the record carefully enough that readers can understand what is established, what is disputed, what remains unexplained, and what questions deserve further examination.

Corrections, responses, attribution practices, and other publication standards are addressed in our editorial standards.

R13 Tribune and Law, Disorder, and Faith, Texas Size: You Be The Judge

Some stories require more room than a written article can provide.

For that reason, R13 Multimedia also produces the investigative and public-affairs podcast:

Law, Disorder, and Faith, Texas Size: You Be The Judge

The podcast allows us to examine documents in greater depth, explain complicated legal and institutional issues, hear from affected individuals, invite responses from those whose actions are being examined, and place competing interpretations before the audience.

The phrase “You Be The Judge” does not mean that public opinion replaces a court of law.

It means that readers and listeners should be given enough reliable information to evaluate the record for themselves.

We present the evidence.

We identify what is established.

We identify what is disputed.

We ask the unanswered questions.

Then we invite the audience to think critically about what the record shows.

R13 Tribune and the R13 Legal Incubator

R13 Tribune reports and investigates.

The R13 Legal Incubator addresses a different part of the problem.

Many people facing foreclosure, eviction, bankruptcy, probate disputes, tax problems, attorney misconduct, appeals, or other serious legal difficulties do not merely need information.

They need competent professional assistance.

The R13 Legal Incubator is intended to help expand access to justice through legal education, attorney development, investigation, document organization, professional referrals, and other lawful support services.

Where licensed legal representation is required, the objective is to help connect people with qualified attorneys.

Where misconduct is alleged, the objective is to organize the evidence and place it before the proper authority.

Where the public needs to understand what happened, R13 Tribune provides the journalism.

The Tribune, the podcast, and the Legal Incubator have different roles, but they share a common purpose:

to help people move from confusion to knowledge and from isolation to informed action.