Trendy Matters is committed to developing and growing a cutting-edge media company that maintains strict adherence to journalistic integrity. These editorial guidelines outline specific ways we uphold that standard. We prioritize fostering an environment that encourages passion, integrity, enhances collaboration, and honors all voices and identities.

That being said, we acknowledge that the intricacies of real life cannot be condensed into a simple set of rules. We advocate for open dialogue and discussions with colleagues and supervisors about particular scenarios to make the best editorial decisions for those we write about and our readership.

The following are our standards, goals, and ethos. While some of it is concrete, other aspects will be subject to editorial discretion as outlined below.

1. Independence and Conflict of Interest

Commitment to Independence: Our editorial team operates independently of any external influence. We do not allow personal, financial, or political interests to affect our editorial decisions. At present, Trendy Matters has no established brand partnership or affiliate deals. All content is created solely at the discretion of the Trendy Matters editorial team.
Disclosure of Interests: All contributors must disclose any potential conflicts of interest that might influence their reporting or commentary. Transparency is key to maintaining trust with our audience.
Avoiding Conflicts: Editorial staff must avoid situations that could lead to conflicts of interest. This includes, but is not limited to, accepting gifts, favors, or compensation from sources, subjects, or stakeholders involved in the content being produced.
Sponsored Content: See Sponsored Content guidelines and policies below.

2. Factual Accuracy, Citations, and Corrections

Commitment to Accuracy: We are dedicated to providing accurate, reliable, and well-researched information. We link sources of our information directly in line within the content so readers can easily identify where the information comes from.
- If the information included is not confirmed, but rather, speculative, rumored, or internet speculating, it will be clearly identified in content.
Corrections Policy: If a mistake is identified, it is our responsibility to correct it promptly and transparently. Corrections should be clearly noted and communicated to our audience to maintain our credibility.

If you notice an error or inaccuracy, please send a link to the article with a description to admin@gmcommerce.co. Please read our “Source Verification” guidelines to ensure your correction meets our revision criteria. Your inquiry will be reviewed by our editorial team.
Quotes: Quotes: If a quote from a person or organization is included in an article or other content without being obtained directly through a Trendy Matters interview, we will link to a primary source such as a video or a post from their primary social media account where they said the quote.
- We typically do not base quotes on secondary reporting, such as from another media outlet. For example, social media can be, but is not always a primary source. If a given celebrity, production company, or known affiliated party (e.g., a confirmed publicist) posts relevant information to the topic at hand, those can be considered primary. Secondary accounts are not considered primary but may still be integrated, though they will be clearly identified as such.
- Unaltered videos of the quotes speaking are considered primary sources.
- For our intents and purposes, social media influencers or people of prominence in society are considered celebrities. We do not differentiate between traditional and new age forms of celebrity. We do generally contextualize how the person is known.
Citations: When citing sources, proper attribution will be given. Attributions typically come as an in-link hyperlink to the source or as a list item in the article’s footnotes, or in some cases, the source will be directly embedded within the article.
Opinions: Due to the nature of Trendy Matters content, we allow our author’s to have points of view and angles on various stories, such as critiques or praise of movies, pop culture trends, and other culturally focused topics.
Fact vs. Rumors: Due to the nature of Trendy Matters content and topics, some of the articles on this site may contain rumor-based information that has not necessarily been officially confirmed by an involved party. In those cases, we will make it clear within the language (e.g., allegedly, reportedly) that the presented information is unconfirmed. We will also expressly note in the information has not been confirmed by the involved parties.
- Though we may publish content that has some degree of critiques and criticism, we are not a tabloid that seeks to defame or invade the privacy of anyone. It is okay to respectfully disagree or present the information in the context of how it is being received as well as offer points of disagreements, but in those cases, articles will be clearly labels as opinions or reviews to unsure clarity that criticisms are the opinion of the contributor only.
- Should a contributor submit an article that blurs the line of disagreement and disparaging, our editorial team reserves the right to refuse to publish the contract and terminate the contract for this reason.
- We do not call anyone names and are sure to outline what has and hasn’t been confirmed clearly to we do not “put words in people’s mouths” so to speak.
- We do not seek to humiliate or embarrass anyone and aim to present information and our take on it as respectfully as possible. Remember, whether you agree or disagree, that is a person you’re talking about—and they or their family members may read this. And we all make mistakes, but most of us aren’t under public scrutiny.
Images, Videos, and Media: Trendy Matters acquires images, videos, and other media from a variety of sources. Our editorial process involves licensing images from Getty and sourcing content from social media, film stills, and other platforms. We are committed to ensuring copyright compliance either through formal licensing or by adhering to the Fair Use standard under copyright law.
- As the majority of our content consists of critiques, reviews, reporting, commentary, opinion, and other editorial uses, it aligns with Fair Use guidelines.
- It’s important to consider that Fair Use typically requires that an image is used within context. For example, if discussing a performance of a given actress in a movie, including an image of that actress in that movie would fall under fair use. However, using an image of that actress that is not of that particular performance, would not. If you’re speaking to Aubrey Plaza’s performance in Agatha All Along, we can use an image of her in Agatha All Along, not an image of her at the Emmys (unless we have express permission to do or have properly licensed the image through a subscription service such as Getty or Shutterstock.)
- However, if you have any questions or concerns regarding the use of media on our site, please do not hesitate to contact us at admin@gmcommerce.co. Kindly provide the link to the page containing the image in question, and we will take the necessary steps to address any issues promptly.

3. Style Guide

Barring a few small exceptions, Trendy Matters adheres to AP Stylebook for grammar, formatting, and punctuation. A few small exceptions:

Italicize works of art such as film, show, and song titles instead of the AP-recommended quotation marks
We generally adhere to Chicago Manual of Style’s headline treatment (Mostly titlecase)
We use the Oxford comma

4. Disclosure and Transparency Ethics

Trendy Matters prides itself on editorial independence, with staff and contributors dedicated to maintaining this independence. They will steer clear of activities that might compromise their journalistic integrity.

Should a conflict of interest, or appearance of conflict of interest occur, such as through personal or familial connections, financial investments or contributions, or working with or promoting an organization under coverage, the editorial team member or contributor will be recused from the coverage or will disclose the conflict publicly.

Though Trendy Matters has numerous investors, these investors do not have any influence over our reporting or internal editorial guidelines and processes.

5. Agenda-Free Reporting

Objectivity: We strive for impartiality and objectivity in our reporting. Our content should not promote any particular agenda or narrative. Moreover, we are an independent, self-funded media source that does promote specific viewpoints for the sake of swaying public sentiment one way or another.
Balanced Reporting: The subject matter we report on and the implicit viewpoints represented within are those of the contributor and not of Trendy Matters as an organization.
Opinions and Reviews: We like to stimulate the discourse here and highly favor original points of views, even less conventional ones. For that reason, we regularly publish reviews and opinions on various entertainment related topics.

However, art and interpreting it is very subjective, and not all readers will agree with every point of view listed on our site.

To that end, we take great care to ensure subjective opinion pieces and reviews are expressly labeled as such and include clear disclaimers regarding any affiliations or relevant context for the opinion being presented.

Articles that have opinions and reviews are noted as such immediately, above the headline, and relevant disclaimers of affiliations or otherwise relevant context are noted at the end of the article along with the author’s name, background information and contact.

6. Sponsored or Affiliate Content Guidelines

While Trendy Matters does not currently create sponsored content, it is any avenue we may explore in the future. However, maintaining full transparency regarding our affiliations and sponsorship is an important part of our editorial ethos.

The following outlines our sponsored content and affiliate content policies should we enter such arrangements with potential partners in the future.

We will only consider writing about products or services we deem relevant for our audiences, for which our editorial team has complete discretion.
Should we enter a sponsorship partnership, for the sake of preserving editorial objectivity, we would not allow for sponsor partners to have final approval on the content related to the product or service.
We maintain the right to be critical of a sponsor partner’s product or service as well as the right to refuse the partnership in the event we find the product or service unworthy of writing about or irrelevant to our audiences.
We will not publish any claims or endorsements nor criticisms of products or services we have not tried first hand. Should we enter a partnership, the partner is required to send us the product to try or provide us access to the service to use.
Moreover, the disclosure will come prior to any links to the sponsoring partners website.
If an article is written with the express intent of promoting a product, service, or person, it will be clearly labeled as ‘sponsored’ content.
Once the article goes live, the partner does not reserve the right to have the article unpublished, even if the portrayal of the product is not exactly as the partner wishes.
- They may, however, reach out to our editorial team at admin@gmcommerce.co and clarify details they wish us to reevaluate should there be a misunderstanding of how the product or service is used. In this case, we may consider adding an update to the article to clarify, but will note the change for full transparency to our readership.
- Choosing to add an update or not, as well as the content of the update is subject to our editorial team’s discretion.

7. Content Standards

Respectful Content: Content must be free from abusive language, profanity, and sexual content. Respect for all individuals and groups is paramount.
Non-Violent: We do not publish content that incites violence or promotes harmful behavior.
Editorial Tone: The tone of our content should be professional and respectful, avoiding sensationalism and unnecessary provocation.
Harassment: Trendy Matters and its parent company, GM Commerce LLC, understands that harassment, in both digital and physical spaces, is a growing problem with potentially life-altering outcomes for victims. We are committed to taking the impact on our team members and contractors seriously. We will use appropriate measures to ensure their protection.

If it is determined that a Trendy Matters contributor participates in or encourages harassment, we will take necessary actions to address the situation including, but not limited to, terminating their contract and/or employment with us and well or removing their content from our site.

8. Prohibited Content

The following types of content are prohibited and will result in rejection of articles.

Profanity or otherwise vulgar language
- Note: In the case of quotes, we do allow for the expletive to be included, but it must be censored. E.G., sh*t
- Profanity is never allowed within headlines, and in most cases, profanity, even in the context of quote, should be avoid.
Sexually explicit content
Promoting or glorifying violence or terrorism in any way
Promoting or disparaging self harm or suicide in any way
Hate speech (on the basis of race, gender, age, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, mental/physical abilities, etc)
Bullying or abusive harassment
Sexually explicit material that is not contextually relevant to the story at hand (i.e., a story about a porn star, abortion statistics, etc.)
Misinformation or Hoaxes (knowingly including false information, particularly about medical topics or politics.)
Content that centers on child abuse or exploitation
Sensationalism intended
Misinformation or distortion of information
Graphic or disturbing images that depict violence, bodily harm, medical “gore,” bodies (even in caskets and bags), animal abuse, people in extreme distress or pain
Hyper sexualized images (e.g., a close up of body parts, nudity, heavily implied sexual undertones and innuendoes)
Manipulated images or media intended to mislead the viewer as presentation of fact
Doxxing, including names, addresses, emails, phone numbers, or other personal information
War-related content, including but not limited to violent organizations and groups (We are an entertainment site, so this is out of our wheelhouse anyways.)
Medical suggestions or misinformation

9. Human-Crafted, Original Content Commitment

A.I. Content

Our commitment to human-crafted content ensures that our readers receive thoughtful, authentic, and insightful material, reflecting the expertise and unique perspectives of our talented staff.

A.I. is a tool, not a substitute. It can be strategic to use AI for ideation on ways to better word sentences or phrase headlines, but the idea behind that headline or sentence should be human originated, just looking for the right syntax to properly express the idea.

You should know that as it is now, AI-generated content is pretty easy to spot. AI has a way of putting a lot of words together that sound like they are saying something but is in fact just redundant. We can tell. And that’s to say nothing of the scanners which we use in our editorial review process that “scores” a probability or percent of the content that is likely AI-generated. We look for scores under 15%.

We may however, use AI to help us proofread an article to catch typos and make syntax suggestions at our editorial discretion. Draft composed entirely of AI-written content are screen for and automatically disqualified, even if the originals pitch for it is accepted. No exceptions.

Plagarism

Please read this section carefully as this is an unfortunately common occurrence with freelance contributors. We do catch this, and we take it very seriously.

Part of our editorial review process is to run plagiarism scans. Unfortunately, “writers” have and will submit content that is a rewording of other publications original content.

This is ground for termination and well as being permanently banned from contributing to Trendy Matters or any other GM Commerce, LLC brand. We do keep track of writers who’s content has been flagged for plagiarism.

To be clear, we often fact check quotes, and surprisingly, this is how we detect plagiarism most often. It’s disappointing how often people submit content that is essentially the same chronology, citations, quotes and points made by another publication. To us, that is the same as plagiarism, even if it’s not picked up be scanners. We are not asking you to find another article on another site, put it into AI for rewording and submit it for payment.

If this time of activity is detected, you will be permanently banned from contributing to Trendy Matters and any GM Commerce, LLC brands in the future. Your contract will be terminated, and you will not be paid. We take this matter very seriously.

Trendy Matters Editorial Process

Our multi-phase editorial process is comprised of the following:

1. Pitching and Ideation

At Trendy Matters, our editors diligently check various analytics to identify trending topics in the of entertainment and pop culture, such as viral social media topics, celebrity and entertainment news, the latest releases in music, TV, and film.

Typically, we consider the audience size of the potential article, but we are open to more obscure cultural art forms such as indie films and lesser-known shows.

In order for the pitch to be considered, it must contain primary sourcing as outlined in our editorial guidelines.

We tend to prefer pitches that offer a unique point of view, contextualize entertainment and culture within in a larger social context or trend, and fan theories and hypotheses, as long as they can be backed with supporting evidence from credible and relevant sources.

Pitches with the flexibility to integrate images and media are preferred.

In order to pitch to a Trendy Matters editor, please send an email to admin@gmcommerce.co with:

Proposed headline
A brief, 2-3 sentence overview of the article’s main premise, angle, and direction
Relevant sources the be cited within the article
Links to related media

Please be advised that in order to be published on Trendy Matters, you must include your full name, a short biography, a link to a social media account(s) which will be listed on the article upon publication. We do not allow or anonymous articles unless expressly agreed to in advance by our editorial team. Those exceptions are rare.

We also highly prefer articles that include exclusive interviews or images. To promote a new film, album, or project, please be advised that if accepted, the article will feature a disclaimer that it was done in partnership as a promotional piece. Promotional pieces are not eligible for payment.

We do offer payment for accepted submissions ranging from $25–$100 depending on article length and substance. More exclusive the content (e.g., original interviews or images), are eligible for the higher end of the range.

Additionally, we are willing to negotiate high rates for interesting image designs. However, in order for the composition to be considered, we do require that each element is cited to ensure intellectual property compliance, and that the image’s designer name be fully displayed in the image’s caption.

Editorial Review Processes

Once a pitch is approved, a deadline is assigned, and payment negotiated, you will be assigned an editor for your piece. You will submit your draft to your assigned editor.

Trendy Matters holds full editorial discretion over changes made to the piece. However, you can reach out to your editor if you have an issues with any changes and we will make efforts to resolve those.

The editor reviews the draft for:

Compliance to editorital guidelines
Adherence to our style guide
Originality
Fact checking facts, opinions, and numbers in the article. Importantly, our fact checking relies on primary sourcing only. We do not accept quotes second hand. There must be primary sourcing (such as videos of the quoted saying the mentioned quote, publicly availably, first hand sources such as the quoted official social media accounts or an original interview).
Checks credibility of cited sources
Ensure all sources are properly linked within the piece
We run scans for plagiarism and AI content
- Note: For plagiarism, we look for a similarity rate of 15% or less. We do check that the flagged similarities are things that could be expected, such as a quote from a celebrity or cited source.
- If plagiarism is detected, the article will be rejected and payment will not be issued.
  - We recommend preflighting your draft through a free online plagiarism checker such as PapersOwl or Scribbr.
Quotes: We have noticed a phenomenon of publications and submissions all citing the exact same quote. This may be grounds for editorial rejection.
- We want to add something new to the discourse—not rephrase that which has already been said by others. We are very picky about this. That being said, quotes make content more original.
- We suggest that if an interesting quote from a notable figure is cited in various media outlets, try and find the original work and review the context. This may help you find other quotes or greater context that will make your submission more original and by extension, likely to be accepted.

Publishing and Payments

Once the article has passed editorial review, your assigned editor will notify you of the the date your article will be live.

At that time, you can submit an invoice to your editor, which will be paid out in within 30 days of publish date.

Contact Us

Contact and stay updated by subscribing, messaging, and following Trendy Matters on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

CONTACT

Trendy Matters is owned by GM Commerce, LLC.
You can get in touch with us via:

Email: admin@gmcommerce.co

Mailing address:

GM Commerce, LLC
Re: Trendy Matters
1925 Palomar Oaks Way
Carlsbad, California 92008

Phone: (760) 575-4617‬