Editorial Policy

Last updated: May 19, 2026

This page explains how Electronic Dispatch makes editorial decisions: what we cover, how reviews are scored, how we handle conflicts of interest, how the application-fee submission system works, and what we will and won't accept money for.

If you're trying to figure out whether a story you read here is influenced by paid relationships, this page is the answer. The short version: no editorial coverage on this site is sold. Read on for the details.

1. Editorial independence

Electronic Dispatch is independent of any label, festival, venue, agency, distributor, or PR firm. No outside party has approval rights over our coverage. No story has ever been written, published, or killed because of a financial relationship.

The publication is owned by Electronic Dispatch LLC (see /about/). No outside investors. No advertorial agencies.

2. The five pillars

Electronic Dispatch's editorial focus is the underground tier of electronic music — house, techno, ambient, bass, and the scenes around them. "EDM" as a genre label appears in our coverage where factually accurate (the EDM festival circuit, artists who came up through EDM-mainstream channels, industry shifts on that side of the scene), but it isn't our beat. We cover the records you'd actually play out at 4 a.m., the warehouses you'd actually drive across town for, and the people building those scenes outside the festival press cycle.

We cover five things, defined explicitly so you know what to expect:

The Late Pass is a recurring Saturday series within Reviews — five underground releases per week, curated by one editor, no PR pitches taken.

3. How we score reviews

Every review uses the same 0–10 scale. Scores are decided by the reviewer alone — not voted, not negotiated, not changed by editors after publication.

We commit to publishing negative reviews. We accept that this costs us access to some PR lists. Credibility costs more than access.

4. Conflicts of interest

Every review and feature includes a "Reviewer bias" disclosure at the bottom if any of the following apply:

• The reviewer has previously worked with or for the artist, label, or venue
• The reviewer has a personal relationship with anyone involved
• The reviewer received the music as a paid promo (we accept free promos from all labels but never paid promos)
• The publication has any financial relationship with anyone involved (see §6)

If a conflict can't be disclosed away — for example, a reviewer is too close to the artist to write objectively — we assign the piece to someone else.

5. The artist submission application fee (the most important section)

Electronic Dispatch accepts artist submissions via /submit/ with a $10 application fee per submission. We want to be absolutely clear about what this is and isn't:

What the fee buys: The editor's commitment to listen to your submission and respond within 14 days with one of:

• "We'd like to cover this" → leads to editorial coverage, which is then written independently
• "Not a fit, here's a one-line reason why" → no coverage

That is the entire transaction. The fee pays for editor time and filters the queue to people who are serious. It does not buy coverage. It does not buy a positive review. It does not buy a guaranteed write-up of any kind. Most submissions are rejected — our acceptance rate is roughly 2% and we publish that number transparently.

What the fee absolutely does not buy:

• Guaranteed publication
• Influence over the review score
• Faster handling than free editorial pitches (which come via /pitch/ from working journalists and music industry contacts and are evaluated on the same merits)
• Removal of negative coverage about you or your label

If anyone — including us — ever implies that paying the application fee will influence editorial outcome, that's a violation of this policy and grounds for a public correction (see §8) and a refund.

Why we charge at all: Without a fee, the submission queue fills with bot pitches and low-effort pitches that take editor time and contribute nothing. The fee is set high enough to filter spam, low enough that a serious artist or small label can submit.

6. Sponsored content (if we ever do it)

As of May 19, 2026, Electronic Dispatch publishes no sponsored content. If that ever changes, the rules are:

1. Sponsored content will be clearly labeled with a "Sponsored" or "Partner content" badge in the title and at the top of the article
2. Sponsored content will live in a visually distinct track from editorial — different layout, different byline structure, different URL pattern (e.g. /sponsored/...)
3. Sponsored content will not be assigned a review score on our 0–10 scale
4. Editorial coverage of any party that has previously paid for sponsored content is permitted but the existence of the past relationship is disclosed
5. We retain editorial control over the language of any sponsored content we publish, and reserve the right to refuse a sponsored placement that conflicts with our editorial standards

7. Sources and reporting

We use named sources where possible. When we use anonymous sources, the article explains why anonymity was granted (typically: the source faces retaliation, the source is not authorized to speak publicly, or the source's identity isn't material to the story). We verify claims with at least one corroborating source where it matters.

We do not pay sources for information. We do not rewrite other publications' articles. We do not republish press releases as editorial.

8. Corrections, updates, and retractions

We make mistakes. When we do, we fix them on the record and explain what changed. The full corrections policy lives at /corrections/. Summary:

• Minor edits (typos, formatting) — silently corrected
• Substantive edits (factual changes, clarifications) — noted at the bottom of the article with date
• Major errors — note at the top of the article, separate corrections page entry, social-media correction if applicable
• Retractions — the original article remains accessible with a clear retraction notice at the top; we don't quietly delete things

9. AI policy

We use AI tools internally as research aids — specifically, our "Dispatch Radar" tool helps editors surface stories worth covering by clustering public RSS and Reddit signals (it does not write articles). We do not use AI to write, rewrite, paraphrase, or generate any part of a published article. Every word on this site that isn't explicitly quoted from a source is written by a human.

If our AI policy changes — for example, if we ever use AI for first-draft writing — this section will be updated and the change will be announced in the corrections feed.

10. Reader contact

Disagreement is welcome. Threats, harassment, and abuse aimed at our staff or contributors are not, and will be reported.

• General inquiries — hello@electronicdispatch.com
• Corrections — corrections@electronicdispatch.com
• Tips — tips@electronicdispatch.com for confidential sourcing
• Press — press@electronicdispatch.com

This policy was last updated on May 19, 2026. Material changes will be announced in our corrections feed. Earlier versions are available on request.