Editorial standards

These are the rules Second Billing works to. If we break one, tell us.

What we publish

• Briefs are short items: what happened, in our words, with a short read on why it matters, labelled as our judgment, and a link to the original source. The read reasons from the facts in the story and never adds a fact, a figure or a forecast of its own.
• Analysis is our reading of a development: what changed, what is known, what is not. It uses several sources and carries a named author.
• Opinion argues a position. It is always labelled, always has a named author, and its facts are sourced like any other story. Opinion can be pointed and can be uncomfortable for the people it is about. It cannot be false.
• The weekly digest is the Monday email and page that gathers the week’s stories.

Attribution

Every fact traces to a source we list at the bottom of the story, and the original source is linked first. When we rely on another outlet’s reporting, we name it in the text. A convention, studio or distributor’s own announcement is that party’s claim, and we say so. Guest-list changes, cancellations and casting news are labelled with who confirmed them; a fan-forum rumour is never run as a fact. If we could not confirm something, we say we have not confirmed it, or we do not run it.

In our own words

We summarize and link. We do not copy. Quotations are short, in quotation marks and attributed. We do not reuse other publishers’ images or headlines.

The checks every story passes

Before a story is published it is checked against its sources, checked by a second, independent system, and reviewed against these standards. Analysis and opinion get further review, including a reviewer whose job is to look for the error, the spin and the side we missed. Any edit after review means the checks run again.

Second Billing specifically

We report on the people and business of cult, B-movie and horror-convention culture. We do not mock the work or the people who make it. A low budget is not treated as a punchline, and a working actor’s convention appearance is covered with the same respect as a studio press junket. Guest-list and appearance news is confirmed with the convention or the guest’s own representative before it runs as fact, not lifted from a flyer or a forum post. We do not repeat promotional language as fact, and we never take payment for coverage.

Where a story comes from and where it is placed

Every story has one topic and one or more regions (North America, United Kingdom & Europe, International). Categories cover topics such as the convention circuit, streaming, distribution and spotlights.

Images

The images on our stories are illustrations, not news photographs. Each one is generated with an AI image tool and chosen to fit a topic, such as a convention hall, a marquee or a film reel. None of them depicts the event, the people or the companies in a story, and none is meant to. Every image carries a label on the page saying that it is an AI illustration, and the same statement is written into the image file. We never present a generated image as a photograph of a real event or a real person, and we do not use other publishers’ images. If we ever run a real photograph, it is credited to the photographer and the source.

Interests we disclose

Second Billing is published by Christopher Ross, who also runs thisismyurl.com, a web and WordPress business. The only advertising on this site is labelled house advertising for that business. It has no say over what we cover, and we do not cover the publisher’s business as news. If that ever changes, we will say so on the story.

Independence

Advertisers and sponsors have no say over what we select or how we write about it. Sponsored content, if we ever run it, will be labelled as such and kept apart from editorial. We disclose any interest an author or the site has in a story.

Corrections

We fix errors openly. See corrections.