Rules and Editorial Guidelines

Before It's News® is the state-of-the-art platform for everything journalism will become. Real time information, commentary, analysis and opinion are collaboratively provided by trusted individuals around the world using the power of the internet to distribute and participate within news stories. At it's heart, Before It's News® is a utility that provides hosting and distribution services to hundreds of valuable news sources across a range of devices.

Editorial Guidelines

Stories accepted for inclusion by Before It's News® must be newsworthy current events and will be determined in the sole discretion of our reporters and editors. Stories of a personal nature are not appropriate for Before It's News® and will not be accepted by our reporters and editors. We follow the Chicago Manual of Style — the quick guide is available here:

http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html

In general stories of a length of between 200-300 words are best. Be concise and to the point and carefully choose a headline that explains what the story is about in clear terms. Who-What-When-Where-Why are good questions to ask about the story, from the viewers point of view. Before It's News® and its reporters and editors don't take any particular editorial stance. When stories move into the area of opinion, they need to be placed in the Opinion - Conservative or Opinion - Liberal categories.

Story Requirements

The first requirement is that your story must be news, commentary, analysis or opinion and placed into the appropriate category. Carefully check for grammatical and spelling errors — they will lower the credibility of your story and could cause your story to be rejected by our reporters and editors. We will give grammatical latitude to writers who do not use English as their first language. Spacing should conform to standard web article spacing with a single space between paragraphs for easy reading.

Promotional Stories

We accept promotional stories under the conditions of our TOS (see paragraph 8 for promotional story conditions). To prevent spam and other abuse, we have instituted a modest fee of about a dollar. These stories should contain interesting news and information about products or services and may include press releases and announcements regarding products that will be of interest to our viewers. Promotional stories are never included in site's news area and are not eligible for inclusion in the newsmap fed to Google News.

Posting Stories

To propose a story for inclusion in Before It's News®, login with your account and password, then click the UPLOAD NEWS button found on the navigation bar found at the top of every page. When you open a Before It's News® account, your stories are moderated...that is, we will not release your stories into the system until your initial stories are reviewed by our editors. Only news stories are allowed into the main area of the site. If you have promotional stories, we do accept these, but they MUST be placed in the Promotional category — NO EXCEPTIONS — see Promotional Stories below for more information. Your story needs to conform to our Editorial Guidelines below or it will be blocked from the site.

Policy on Republishing Articles

Before It's News® will only accept news worthy, current articles published elsewhere that are of interest to our viewers and that pass our editorial review process. These stories will only be published when the express written permission of the author or originating web site has been given. If you are the author of articles suitable for any of our news categories, please submit them to the site directly and they will be moderated by a reporter or editor.

Viewing the News

Access to all news at Before It's News® is free from any web browser or (real soon now) mobile phone. Our advertisers pay for this and they (and we) would appreciate it if you would visit them if you see something of interest.

Getting an Account

To post stories and comments, you will need an account with a validated email address. Accounts are free and will give you limited abilities you can upgrade over time by following these editorial guidelines and . You can sign up for one here and once you complete the simple application form with your email and password, you will receive a confirmation email. You must click on a link within that email to validate your account before you may post any stories. In addition to a regular account that allows you to post comments and stories, there are additional levels of accounts: publisher, editor and reporter. Only people who have demonstrated the highest professional standards or who have the appropriate experience will be elevated to these levels. Stories are moderated by publishers, editors or reporters to ensure they meet news story editorial guidelines to be considered for inclusion in the newsmap that is fed directly to Google News.

Policy on Screen Names

You may keep an Anonymous screen name at Before It's News® due to the sensitivity of many news stories and to protect our contributor's identities. This insures the continued contributions by whistleblowers, dissidents and other at risk people. Confidential sources will be protected to the fullest extent of the law.

Posting Comments

Comments may be posted at the site, provided they follow our rules about comments. No profanity is allowed. While you are free to express your opinion, we ask that you stay on topic and refrain from name calling, defamation and saying things that reflect badly on yourself and others. We reserve the right to remove any comments for any reason at any time. We will be instituting a user generated flagging system in the near future to allow our viewers to assist us in identifying any comments that don't meet the conditions of our TOS.