Blasting News ensures the quality and accuracy of its news articles through a curated process.
Blasters can only submit news as a “proposal for publication”. As soon as the proposed news article is received, Blasting News adopts several layers of controls to ensure the quality and accuracy of the news article. After these controls, if the news article abides to Blasting News’ policies and standards, the news article is published.
A. Controls before publication
STEP 1 - Automatic Limitations tool and Anti-plagiarism tool.
Initially, the proposed article is checked by:
- The Automatic Limitations tool, which prevents the use of certain keywords and expressions within the content, as well as grammatical and simple syntax errors.
- The Anti-plagiarism algorithm, which prevents the publishing of content copied from elsewhere on the Internet (including Blasting News’ own website). Blasting News accepts from Blasters only original content not previously published in any other publication. The algorithm detects if an article has been copy-pasted from other sources, or if the article has been taken from another website. Blasting News’ automated anti-plagiarism technology will not allow for any content that violates copyright or trademark rights to be published.
STEP 2 - First level control conducted by the Reviewers.
The proposed article is then evaluated by a Reviewer, who can choose to either publish, correct, or reject the proposed article. When reviewing an article, Reviewers must ensure that (among other factors):
- The content adheres to the Blasting News Acceptable Content Guidelines
- The sources cited in the article are correct, and that the article’s information is accurate and true.
- The content does not violate any law, e.g. terrorism, pornography or other crimes.
- The content is not promotional content nor advertising material; Blasters do not have the right to publish any such content.
- The content is well written and well presented.
- The content’s headline and subheadline are powerful, catchy, and not clickbaiting by any means.
Reviewers do not impose their opinions on the content they verify.
A Reviewer cannot reject an article outright. The first option available is either publish or send back for revision. If sent back, the Reviewer must give the Blaster full and complete feedback as to why the article was not approved in its first draft. An article can be revised up to three times before a final decision must be made – to either publish or reject the article.
If in doubt, the Reviewer will consult with the editorial newsroom based in London in order to verify the newsworthiness or validity of an article that has been proposed. If there is any doubt as to the validity of the article, the editorial newsroom may elevate the discussion to the Head of Content who will take the final decision on the content.
At all times, the Reviewer is required to give full and complete feedback to the blaster and the entire feedback chain is then made available to the editorial newsroom so that they may intervene should a discussion arise as to why an article was or was not published.
STEP 3 - Second level control conducted by the Blasting News internal editorial content team.
Once Step 1 and Step 2 have been completed, the proposed article is not necessarily published on the website; depending on several factors, the proposed article may still go through an additional pre-publication verification process taken by the Blasting News editorial newsroom based in London to further control the adherence of the content with Blasting News policies and guidelines, especially for clickbait and fake news content.
B. Controls after publication
STEP 4 - Control made by Algorithms.
The published article is continuously checked through standard tools and proprietary algorithms specifically looking for clickbaiting and misleading headlines. Any clickbait or misleading article will be sent for immediate review to editorial newsrooms in London.
STEP 5 - Continuous control conducted by the editorial newsroom in London.
The published article is then checked by the editorial newsroom based in London. The editorial newsroom employs professional journalists coming from different backgrounds and various nationalities.
STEP 6 - Control made by the readers.
Finally, the published article is continuously checked by its own readers. Readers can rank an headline and/or suggest corrections and provide Blasting News with feedback through the site’s correction policy. In every news article, readers can easily find a very prominent and visible link through which they can send their feedback directly to Blasting News. Cooperation is key to ensure high-quality journalism and to improve journalism, fix errors, and enrich any content with different facts and points of view.