Changes to Bleacher Report editorial policies

Today, Bleacher Report is announcing a new set of editorial policies and standards designed to enhance overall quality on the site and ensure that the work of our top writers and Featured Columnists is seen in the best possible light.

We started out two and a half years ago as an open-contribution network, determined to shine the spotlight on the best new voices in sports media. While we’ll always remain true to those roots, we’ve decided to make some changes in order to raise the bar for quality and safeguard the many great writers who make their home on Bleacher Report and prevent their work from being tarnished or put in a bad light by, to put it frankly, a few bad apples who occasionally try to subvert or abuse their publication privileges on the site.

For the past few weeks, we’ve been testing out an application process for new writers, and today we’re making it a permanent feature on the site. Previously, writers could sign up and start publishing to their profile pages right away. Even though all submitted articles had to be reviewed by an editorial staffer before being published anywhere else on the site or syndicated, occasionally something below our quality bar would slip through the cracks or get out somehow (which tends to happen on the web).

Now, all new writers must submit an application and writing samples and then be approved by an editorial staffer before they can gain access to the publishing platform. We’ve also done a thorough sweep of non-syndicated and inactive writers to weed out anyone who wouldn’t pass muster under the new standards. All unapproved writers are always welcome to hone their chops and reapply.

Click here to read more about the new standards in full.

In summary, the new standards are as follows:

• All new writers must formally apply on the web site with a writing sample at http://bleacherreport.com/pages/newwriters. Writing samples are then promptly reviewed by Bleacher Report editorial staff.

• Approved writers must have a cogent writing style, provide detailed analysis, and display solid sentence structure and command of the English language. Their work is of a high enough quality and consistency to be regularly featured on Bleacher Report, on partner sites, and in aggregators such as Google News. Approved writers can write about the NFL, or they can write about cricket – the content doesn’t matter as much as the high quality.

• Writers who are not approved might show some promise, but ultimately, their work has too many errors and/or too little analysis to be published on Bleacher Report or its syndicated partners. Some of the reasons a writer may not be approved include: publishing unsubstantiated rumors as news; failure to cite sources; paraphrasing content from another source without crediting that source or plagiarizing content from another source; inability to present ideas and analysis in clear and coherent language; rehashing news or rumor from another site without adding anything to the conversation; creating partial articles that requires readers to click on a link to a different site to finish the story; and submitting articles that are very short and do nothing more than recap news that’s already known

Just as with previous editorial policy changes such as the syndicated writer status and the Featured Columnist program, the goal is to continue to raise the bar of quality and to lend further credibility to the work of our writers. We strive to be as transparent as possible with our processes and rules so that everyone can be on a level playing field. If you have any questions or feedback, please let us know in the comments.