How We Select Stories

Brightside Report uses an editorial scoring and review system to evaluate every story before it appears on the site. This page explains how we decide what to publish.

Discovery

Stories reach our editorial queue through two channels:

• RSS monitoring — We continuously monitor RSS feeds from our curated source list for new content.
• Keyword discovery — We search for positive news using targeted queries across five editorial categories: positive news, solutions journalism, scientific progress, human achievement, and motivational stories.

Both channels feed into the same candidate review queue. Stories are never auto-published.

Editorial Scoring

Each candidate story receives a composite priority score (0–100) based on several weighted factors:

• Source trust (25%) — Stories from established, high-tier sources score higher. Each of our 63 sources has a priority score based on editorial track record and factual reliability.
• Keyword relevance (20%) — Stories that match our editorial keywords across multiple positive categories score higher.
• Freshness (20%) — Recent stories are prioritized, with scores decaying over 72 hours to keep content current.
• Description quality (15%) — Stories with substantial, detailed summaries score higher than those with thin or missing descriptions.
• Image availability (5%) — Stories with associated images receive a small bonus.
• Category fit (5%) — Stories that clearly fit one of our ten editorial categories receive a bonus.

The score helps editors prioritize their review queue — it does not determine publication decisions.

Duplicate Filtering

When the same event is covered by multiple outlets, our system identifies likely duplicates using:

• Exact URL and title matching
• Fuzzy title similarity analysis (comparing normalized headlines)
• Source domain comparison
• Publication date proximity

Likely duplicates are flagged for editorial review, not automatically removed. Editors decide which version of a story to publish.

Source Diversity

We actively manage how many stories from any single source can appear in prominent positions. Our diversity rules limit per-source representation on the homepage, in featured slots, and in category pages — ensuring readers get a broad range of perspectives. Sources with too many recent candidates in the queue also receive a scoring penalty.

Rejection Rules

A story is filtered out if:

• It contains multiple negative keywords (crisis, collapse, scandal, etc.)
• Its topic falls into an excluded category (politics, crime, celebrity gossip)
• Its source has been blocked by our editors
• It is an exact duplicate of a story already published
• Its editorial score falls below the minimum threshold of 20.0

Daily Motivation

Each day, we highlight one story as the Daily Motivation. This is selected from our heroes, community, and health categories based on motivational scoring — or manually chosen by our editors when a story is especially uplifting.

Content Policy

Brightside Report does not republish full copyrighted articles. We write original summaries in a factual, neutral tone and always link to the original source. We do not use clickbait headlines. We do not accept paid placements or sponsored content in our editorial feed.