About Us
About HERESpartanburg
HERESpartanburg is a hyperlocal digital news publication serving the people of Spartanburg, South Carolina and the surrounding communities. We cover what matters most to residents—breaking news, public safety, local government, business openings and closings, community events, schools, sports, and the everyday stories that shape life in Spartanburg.
Our mission is simple: deliver timely, accurate, fact-checked local news that keeps you informed about your city. Every story we publish goes through editorial review before it reaches you.
Our promise: We would rather not publish a story than publish one that gets the facts wrong. Accuracy comes first—always.
Part of the HERE City Network
HERESpartanburg is part of the HERE City Network, a growing family of 100+ hyperlocal news sites covering communities across more than 30 states and Washington, D.C. Each HERE site operates with its own local editorial focus while sharing the same editorial standards, fact-checking infrastructure, and commitment to accuracy that define the network.
The HERE City Network is operated by HERE City (herecity.com), a digital media company headquartered in Columbia, South Carolina. HERE City has been publishing hyperlocal news since 2018, with HEREColumbia.com, HERELexington, and HEREChapin among its earliest sites. Today the network spans 100+ communities across 30+ states, making it the largest hyperlocal digital news network in America.
To explore other cities in our network, visit herecity.com/states.
Our Team
HERESpartanburg’s reporting team covers the news that matters to Spartanburg County residents. Each reporter focuses on specific beats to ensure deep, consistent coverage.
What We Cover
HERESpartanburg provides daily coverage across multiple beats, drawing from verified local sources including school district websites, public safety agencies, government records, and community organizations.
Real-time coverage of events affecting Spartanburg County. Severe weather, school closings, public safety incidents, and developing stories.
School boards, district policy, testing results, enrollment, closings, and state/national education policy affecting local families. Direct data feeds from all 7 Spartanburg County school districts (Districts 1–7).
High school athletics for all 9 county schools (5A: Spartanburg High, Dorman, Boiling Springs, Byrnes; 4A: Broome; 3A: Chapman, Chesnee, Woodruff; 2A: Landrum), plus Wofford Terriers, USC Upstate Spartans, and Hub City Spartanburgers MiLB.
Incident reports, school safety monitoring across 7 districts, traffic updates for I-85 and I-26 corridors. Sources: Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office, Spartanburg Police Department, SC Highway Patrol.
Local business openings, closings, commercial development, and economic news. Coverage of the BMW Manufacturing corridor, downtown Spartanburg redevelopment, and the I-85 growth corridor.
County Council, school board meetings, elections, zoning, and state legislation affecting the Upstate.
Community events, festivals, concerts, school functions, and things to do across Spartanburg County.
18 neighborhood profiles, real estate trends, relocation resources, and community guides.
Our Editorial Standards
Every article published on HERESpartanburg must meet the editorial standards outlined below. These rules are built into every stage of our content workflow—from sourcing and writing to automated fact-checking and final editorial review. They are not guidelines. They are requirements. Content that fails any of these checks is rejected and never published.
Identity and Attribution Standards
Legal names required. We use legal names from court records, official filings, or verified public records as the primary identifier for any individual named in a story. If a person is also known by an alias, we present it in the format: “Legal Name (also known as Alias).” We never use only an alias without the legal name.
Roles are always stated. Every named individual includes their role in the story—defendant, victim, official, witness, plaintiff, business owner, or other relevant designation. We do not leave roles ambiguous or unstated.
Entity attribution is verified. When we report that an organization, agency, school district, hospital, or business took a specific action—such as a closure, policy change, layoff, or incident—both the entity and the action attributed to it must be confirmed by at least two independent sources. If we cannot confirm the connection, we omit the attribution entirely rather than risk misattributing responsibility.
Source Verification Standards
Two-source minimum. We only publish facts confirmed by at least two independent sources. Independent means two different outlets, agencies, official records, or verified firsthand accounts—not the same story republished or reshared across platforms.
Named individuals verified. If a person’s name cannot be confirmed by two separate, independent sources, we omit them from the story entirely.
No unattributed claims. We do not use language such as “reportedly,” “allegedly,” or “sources say” without clear attribution. Every factual claim traces back to a verifiable source.
Timeliness Standards
Current events only. We cover events that occurred within the prior 48 hours. If a story cannot be confirmed with a specific calendar date from at least one independent source, it does not meet our publishing threshold.
No vague timeframes. Source language like “last week,” “recently,” or “earlier this month” without a specific date does not qualify as confirmation for timeliness purposes.
Accuracy and Anti-Fabrication Policy
Zero tolerance for fabrication. We never generate, invent, or infer names, titles, roles, quotes, dates, locations, or organizational affiliations that are not explicitly present in verified source material.
Omit rather than guess. When we are uncertain about any detail—a spelling, a title, a connection between a person and an event—we omit it. We do not fill gaps with assumptions.
No scope manipulation. If a fact is confirmed at a national level, we do not localize it without local sourcing. If a fact is confirmed at a state level, we do not generalize it to the national level. We report facts at the scope at which they are verified.
Our Fact-Checking Process
HERESpartanburg employs a multi-layer editorial workflow designed to catch errors before they reach you.
Layer 1 — Source Gathering: Story leads are identified from verified news feeds, official records, public safety reports, government agendas, and community sources across Spartanburg and South Carolina. Raw material is collected and tagged with source metadata.
Layer 2 — Editorial Drafting: Articles are drafted following the editorial standards above. Every named person, organization, date, and factual claim is cross-referenced against the source material during drafting. AI-assisted tools may be used in the drafting process, but all content is subject to the same editorial standards regardless of how it was produced.
Layer 3 — Automated Validation: Before publication, every article passes through an independent automated fact-check that separately verifies timeliness (event within 48 hours), source count (minimum two independent sources per named person and entity), identity accuracy (legal names, roles, alias formatting), and entity attribution (confirmed by two sources). Articles that fail any check are rejected automatically and are never published.
Layer 4 — Human Editorial Review: Flagged content and edge cases are reviewed by the editorial team. Automated validation catches structural errors; human review catches context, tone, and judgment calls that algorithms cannot.
This layered approach means that on any given day, our system rejects articles that do not meet our standards. We consider every rejection a success—it means the system is working.
AI-Assisted Content Transparency
HERESpartanburg uses artificial intelligence tools as part of our news production workflow. We believe in being transparent about this.
AI tools assist with source aggregation, article drafting, fact-check validation, and content formatting. However, AI does not set editorial policy, make publish decisions on edge cases, or override our fact-checking standards. Every article—whether AI-assisted or human-written—must pass the same editorial standards and multi-layer validation process described above.
We do not publish AI-generated content that has not been validated against independent sources. Our editorial guardrails are specifically designed to prevent AI hallucination, fabrication, and misattribution—the most common failure modes in AI-generated news content.
Our position is that AI is a tool, not an editor. The editorial standards are the product. The technology is just how we scale them across the HERE City Network without compromising accuracy.
How We Use AI — Frequently Asked Questions
AI tools assist with research, drafting, and formatting, but every article passes through our multi-layer editorial process including automated fact-checking and human review. No AI-generated content is published without validation against independent sources.
Our system requires two independent sources for every named person, organization, and factual claim. AI-generated text is validated against source material before publication. Content that cannot be verified is automatically rejected.
Our reporters are the editorial voices of HERESpartanburg. Each reporter has a defined beat and consistent coverage area. All articles are produced under our editorial standards regardless of the tools used in the production process. Contact our team at [email protected].
Most AI news sites republish and rewrite content without verification. HERESpartanburg maintains direct data feeds from school districts, cross-references multiple sources for every story, adds local context and analysis, and applies strict editorial guardrails including our two-source minimum, zero-fabrication policy, and 48-hour freshness requirement.
Our editorial system is designed to reject content that fails verification rather than publish uncertain information. We maintain a public corrections policy, clearly disclose our editorial process, and provide direct contact information for questions or concerns.
Corrections Policy
We take errors seriously. If we publish something that is factually incorrect, we want to know about it and we will fix it.
How to report an error: Contact us at the email address below with the article URL, a description of the error, and any supporting information or sources. We review every correction request.
How we handle corrections: Confirmed errors are corrected directly in the article with a visible correction notice appended to the story indicating what was changed, when it was changed, and why. We do not silently edit published articles. If a story is found to be fundamentally unreliable, we will retract it entirely and replace the content with a retraction notice.
Our standard: We aim to acknowledge correction requests within 24 hours and to publish corrections as quickly as the verification process allows.
Privacy and Ethical Standards
We are especially careful with stories involving crime, medical events, private individuals, and minors. We follow these principles in all reporting:
We do not name minors involved in criminal cases or sensitive situations unless their names appear in official public records and naming them serves a clear public interest.
We do not publish unverified mugshots, personal photographs, or private information obtained outside of public records.
We do not sensationalize crime, medical emergencies, or personal tragedies for engagement purposes.
We respect the distinction between public interest and public curiosity. Not everything that attracts attention deserves publication.
The HERE City Network
HERESpartanburg is part of a growing network of 100+ hyperlocal news sites covering communities across more than 30 states. The HERE City Network is the largest hyperlocal digital news network in America, delivering daily coverage of local news, high school sports, education, events, and business in every market we serve.
Explore the full network: herecity.com/states
Contact Us
HERESpartanburg
Part of the HERE City Network
Operated by HERE City — herecity.com
7001 St Andrews Rd #322, Columbia, SC 29212
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.herespartanburg.com
Network: herecity.com | LinkedIn
This page was last updated April 2026. Our editorial standards are reviewed and updated regularly as our processes improve.