How sponsored content works
The rules that keep paid articles and our reporting from ever being confused for each other — published, so you can hold us to them.
Regulatory News accepts paid articles from companies serving the regulatory and quality community. They fund the publication. They are worth funding it with only if readers can always tell what is paid and what is newsroom — so the separation below is enforced in the publishing system itself, not left to judgment on deadline.
Labeling
- Every sponsored article is tagged Sponsored where a section name would appear, and opens with a disclosure naming the paying company: “Paid content provided by [sponsor]. The Regulatory News newsroom was not involved in its creation.”
- The byline never names a Regulatory News journalist. An article the sponsor writes is bylined to the sponsoring organization. A Sponsored Spotlight, which we write, is bylined to our Spotlight desk, with the sponsor named in the disclosure.
- In the RSS feed, sponsored headlines carry a [Sponsored] prefix. In structured data, the article is marked with the sponsor’s identity, and its links tell search engines the placement was paid (
rel="sponsored").
What sponsorship cannot buy
- No sponsored article appears in the hero, Top Stories, Don’t Miss, or the topic sections — those are editorial judgment, and they are not for sale at any price.
- Sponsored articles appear where the whole archive appears — the Latest rail, site search, the feed and the sitemap — always labeled.
- Sponsorship buys no influence over our reporting. Coverage of a sponsor’s products, competitors, or regulatory troubles is unaffected, and a sponsor cannot preview or veto a news story.
Editorial review
- Every sponsored article is reviewed before publication. We require claims to be sourced, we edit for clarity, and we decline content that is misleading, promotional past usefulness, or wrong.
- Declined submissions are not charged; if payment was already made, it is refunded in full.
- Corrections policy applies to sponsored articles exactly as to our own: errors are corrected visibly and logged.
Spotlight: editorial and sponsored
Spotlight is our series on companies reaching a milestone — a clearance, an approval, a designation, a financing, a launch. It comes in two kinds, and the page always says which.
- Editorial Spotlights are chosen by the newsroom on merit, written by our journalists, labeled Spotlight, and cost the company nothing. They cannot be requested, bought, previewed or vetoed. The links in them are editorial — we link the company’s site, product and announcement because a reader checking the story needs them.
- Sponsored Spotlights are paid placements in the same format. They follow every rule on this page: labeled Sponsored where a section name would appear, opened with the disclosure naming the company that paid, bylined to our Spotlight desk and never to a journalist, kept out of the editorial slots (including the front page’s Spotlight band), and their links tell search engines the placement was paid.
- Who writes a Sponsored Spotlight, and who can change it. Our Spotlight desk writes it from the public record and the company’s announcement. The company sees it before publication and may correct an error of fact. It may not change our account of its milestone, its evidence or its competitors, and it may not approve or veto the piece. We hold that line so the profile stays unbiased: one a company could rewrite would be an advertisement, and we would have to label it as one.
- Spotlights on a plan. A company can also buy Sponsored Spotlights by monthly subscription, so that each regulatory milestone it completes is written up without a separate order. A Spotlight published under a plan is a Sponsored Spotlight in every respect above.
A company that has bought a Sponsored Spotlight, singly or on a plan, is neither more nor less likely to receive an editorial one. Our coverage of its products, competitors or regulatory troubles is unaffected.
About our publisher
Regulatory News is published by Regulatory Leadership Partners, which also operates the other platforms in the Regulatory Ecosystem. When one of those sister businesses promotes itself here, it follows every rule on this page — labeled as sponsored, named as the source, kept out of editorial slots — because a house ad is still an ad.
Questions
About a specific sponsored article: editor@regulatorynews.com. About running one: see Advertise.