Standards & ethics

Version 2.0 · Published 16 Sep 2026 · Changes are logged at the bottom

Under Review is built on one bet: that in a media environment where anyone can generate anything, the scarce thing is not personality — it is verifiability. So we do not ask you to trust our analysts. We show you both reports.

How a claim is ruled

Every factual statement this newsroom handles is a row in a ledger with a status on it. There are three, and they are the ones the booth uses.

Sourcing

This is enforced mechanically, not by good intentions. Scripts are generated from the claim ledger and may only reference claims that already exist and are already confirmed. A validator refuses any script sentence that asserts a fact without a claim behind it, and re-runs at render time — an approval is a signature, not a permanent warrant. If a source document changes after approval such that our quoted words are no longer in it, the article stops rendering. If the validator does not clear, nothing renders.

Injury and availability reporting

This is the desk's main beat, and it is where football reporting most often goes wrong, so the rules are specific.

• We report the designation, not our reading of it. "Did not participate Wednesday" is a fact. "Trending toward playing" is somebody's inference, and if we say it at all we say whose it is.
• Practice status carries its day. Wednesday's report is not Friday's, and a designation is always published with the day it was filed and the game it applies to.
• Game status carries its filing time. Out, doubtful and questionable are quoted as filed, with the timestamp, because they change.
• No diagnosis beyond what was said publicly. We do not name an injury the team has not named, we do not grade a sprain, and we do not read severity off a replay of the play.
• No return timelines we cannot source twice. "Week-to-week" attributed to nobody is held, not published.
• We wait for the second outlet even when the first is the reporter who always breaks it. Especially then.
• No characterisation of a player's body, effort or toughness. Ever, in any form, including by implication.

The Calls: opinion, kept honest

Reporting tells you what happened. The Calls tell you what to do about it — start or sit, add or drop — in the voices of three analysts. The analysts are synthetic, and their calls are opinion. What keeps them honest is not a source for the opinion. It is a public record of whether it was right.

• Signed before kickoff, or it does not run. Every call is approved by the named human editor before the player's game starts. The database refuses a signature after kickoff. There are no hindsight picks.
• Never edited, never deleted. Once signed, a call is locked. A bad call stays up next to its result. If an analyst changes their mind, that is a new call, and both are graded.
• Graded by a rule published in advance. Full PPR, finish within position, from nflverse weekly player stats. The line in force when a call is signed is frozen onto it, so changing the rule later cannot rescue an old call. See the record.
• No voids. A start call on a player who then sits out is a miss. A desk that can void its misses has a record that means nothing.
• Opinion, not invented facts. Every call carries its evidence: the stat lines it was made from, shown underneath. An analyst may not write a number that is not in that evidence — the system refuses the call. Any news a call leans on must be a confirmed claim from our own ledger.
• Labelled as analysis, everywhere. A call is never presented as a report, and a report is never written as a call.

Betting

Synthetic analysts

Under Review publishes text. There are no video presenters and no generated voices today. If that changes, the rules below extend to cover it and this section says so on the day it happens, not after.

• Disclosed everywhere. Every page carries the disclosure — in the navigation bar on a wide screen, and in the footer of every page on every screen — and every call and article names the human who approved it. Disclosure sits on the page itself, not in a policy nobody opens.
• Named on the masthead as synthetic. Our analysts use full names because full names raise the credibility ceiling — and that raises the disclosure burden to match.
• Never a depiction of a real person. No player, coach, official, executive or reporter, living or dead, is ever generated in likeness or voice, for any purpose, including satire. The analysts are not based on anyone.
• Never generated footage. We do not generate a play, a practice, a sideline or a press conference. Charts and diagrams are built by us. Any real footage is licensed and credited.
• One locked identity per analyst. A single fixed name and a single fixed method, used only by this newsroom. We do not rotate identities or A/B test analysts, and an analyst's method does not change to suit a result.

The editorial gate

Nothing publishes without a human. A named editor reviews every script against its ledger before render, and that approval is recorded with a name and a timestamp that appears on the published article. If the editor is unavailable, the edition does not go out. There is no automatic-publish path, no "approved by default after N minutes", and no scheduled render that fires without a signature.

The same applies to every call on The Calls: a draft is signed by name before kickoff or it never appears.

Corrections

Anything we publish that turns out to be wrong is corrected in place. Corrections are permanent, timestamped, and recorded in the public overturn record along with how long the error was live. We do not silently edit, we do not delete a signed call or ranking instead of correcting it, and we do not call a factual error a "clarification". Claims we held for insufficient sourcing are published too, in the ledger of the story they belonged to.

Independence and money

Under Review takes sponsorship and affiliate revenue — from sportsbooks, teams, leagues, fantasy platforms, ticket sellers and other brands. What money buys is space. It never buys coverage, a call, a grade or a correction.

• Disclosed. Every sponsor and affiliate partner is named on the masthead. Sponsored content is labelled Sponsored, ads are labelled Advertisement, and a page with affiliate links says we may earn a commission.
• Walled off. No sponsor or partner sees a call or a story before it publishes, and none has any say in what we cover, who the analysts pick, or how a call is graded. The grading rule is frozen onto each call when it is signed, for anyone.
• Never inside the work. No ad, sponsor mention or affiliate link appears inside a call card, a claim ledger or an article body. An analyst never promotes a sponsor.
• Declared when it touches the story. When a call or story concerns a team, league or company that pays us, the page says so.
• Gambling advertising runs only where sports wagering is legal, only to readers 21 and over, with responsible-gambling information, and only after legal review of each partner.
• No paid access to a player, agent or team in exchange for coverage.

Conflicts

The editor-in-chief discloses any professional relationship that touches a subject of coverage, and any fantasy league, contest or wager that could be affected by a story is disclosed or the story is not run. Because the analysts are synthetic they cannot themselves hold conflicts — but the human behind them can, and that is where disclosure applies.

Changes to this document

Amendments are published here with a date and a reason, never applied silently.