Editorial Process & Selection Criteria

Mission statement: Virginia Monthly focuses its publication on stories of interest, accurately reported across the world that matter to humanity.

Four Stages of our Editorial Process

1. Initial Submission Guidelines

• During this stage, we receive article submissions from our publishing partners (for those interested in becoming a publishing partner, please contact us here) 
• Our first step in the submission process is to confirm receipt of each article before advancing that piece to our thorough editorial review process. Our publishing partners are responsible to summarize the title and size of each piece and any special requests for publication such as to hold the article for a specific edition or inclusion in a seasonal publication.
• Next we ensure our fundamental publication requirements are met, including font size and style, formatting, color,, and length of each article submitted. 
• Should we identify any flaws or missing information with a given submission, we work closely with our publishing partners to reconcile these discrepancies promptly before we progress the article to the next stage of Editorial Review.

2. Editorial Review

There are two layers of Editorial Review at Virginia Monthly:

1. Compliance – our fundamental publication requirements  include restrictions on content consistent with our ethical responsibilities and modern trends in popular media. Our editorial viewpoint is to publish content that enriches society by providing helpful information that our readership values or finds meaningful. We do not publish hate speech, pornographic content, content promoting illicit drugs, nor do we promote hate about businesses, cultures, products or individuals.

2. Relevance – our secondary editorial review pillar is that the topic of the submission is relevant or of interest to our readership.

3. Preliminary approval

• If a submitted article is deemed to pass both layers of our Editorial Review process, we issue what we call a preliminary approval. 
• The final presented media may appear differently than originally submitted since our preliminary approvals may come with conditions to fix text, correct style or format, or better fit a story in the available space for publication.
  

4. Final approval

• We pride ourselves on promoting an efficient and rigorous process of Editorial Review and Selection. Our criteria is geared toward respect to humanity and what matters to and concerns the State of Virginia. Once an article has been granted final approval, it will be slated for publication and is handed over to our publishing staff who are responsible to slate approved content and formatting fully and correctly in future scheduled online publications. 
• From the point of final approval, typically the article will be published within one to two weeks unless it has been intentionally held for a later season or issue. 

Last Updated: December 1, 2023

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