KQED's Bay Area Bites Guidelines

Bay Area Bites, KQED's aggregate food blog, is dedicated to providing a variety of food-related information from the Bay Area and beyond. BAB bloggers are culinary professionals, food writers, and cookbook editors. Many have local food blogs of their own. Blogger profiles are online so you can learn more about each BAB contributor.

KQED advocates citizen media and has started aggregate blogs to provide a forum for alternative, non-mainstream points of view, including those of the user.

BAB is committed to providing accurate and honest information. Posts are based on individual bloggers' opinions. These perspectives are not necessarily the opinions of KQED. KQED Interactive supports BAB bloggers' contributions and has provided ethical and stylistic guidelines for them to follow.

These guidelines are:
1) BAB bloggers should avoid conflict of interest and personal involvement with restaurants when reviewing establishments.

2) BAB bloggers should remain anonymous when reviewing a restaurant when possible although occasionally bloggers will interview the owner/chef for a post that includes a review.

3) Posts should be supported by factual information.

4) BAB bloggers should provide detailed information on their personal perspective and involvement with the topic if relevant. For example, restaurant reviews should state the number of visits, how long the restaurant has been operating, and the menu items sampled.

5) Honest opinions are encouraged, but should not be abusive. Negative reviews are fine as long as they are supported by factual information.

6) Bloggers self-edit their own content. The KQED BAB producer edits for basic errors: link checking, typos, etc. If a user finds conflict with information in a post they should express their thoughts through the comment feature.

For comment guidelines see KQED's terms of service.