WHO WE ARE
The “Best Of” and GreenState content teams are staffed by Hearst professionals who are also consumers, independent of our media sales channels and editorial newsrooms. Our vision is to improve readers’ lives by being the most trusted source of what’s best in their local community. Our purpose is to provide relevant, credible content that improves the communities we serve by connecting our readers with the best local businesses and service providers.
We are not marketers or sales professionals since our “Top Dispensary” lists and guides are not pay-to-play. We are also not journalists since we primarily use secondary sources to cover topics that help you make better buying decisions. We work in a separate department within Hearst, independently from our colleagues in media sales and our newsrooms.
You can learn more about the person who wrote a Local Guide or “Top Dispensary” listing by clicking on their byline. Our Best Of curatorial team researches and writes “Best Of” Listings for some of the largest local news brands in the U.S., including the Houston Chronicle, SFGATE, the Albany Times Union, the Connecticut Post, and many other weekly and daily news brands.
WHAT WE DO
It can be challenging to determine which local cannabis dispensaries are safe and the best fit for our needs. A search for “the best dispensary near me” can produce a long list of results, but determining which are among the top dispensaries for your needs may require some homework.
That’s where we come in. Our GreenState content team and colleagues with Hearst’s Best Of program collaborate to research and write “Top Dispensary” listings and impartial guides of nearby businesses, using interactive maps. Instead of listing all the nearby businesses or just the ones that pay to be listed, we focus on the “top” ones. Our writers determine what qualifies a dispensary as a “Top Dispensary,” depending on the category, using clearly disclosed standards that rely on multiple, credible, third-party sources when available. We call these businesses “Top Dispensaries.”
When we publish our work, we take care to clearly disclose how we do it so you can decide how much to trust it. We use the following overall guidelines:
- Transparency. It’s tricky to determine what’s “best” since everyone’s needs are different. There is also a lot of information online that may not be what it seems. Our response is to clearly disclose what we are doing and how we are doing it and to label these businesses as “Top” dispensaries according to their ratings on third-party sites.
- Multiple sources. When we research, we connect with multiple local businesses and national experts. We consult multiple sites when we use online resources for things like consumer reviews.
- Not pay-to-play. When a business is listed as a “Top Dispensary,” it’s not because they pay us. They can buy ads (see more about that below), but if they don’t choose to do that, we don’t take them off the “Top Dispensary” list.
- Professional process. All our content goes through a controlled internal editing process to ensure it meets our quality standards.
When required by the state in which these businesses are operating, we independently verify business licenses; when we do, we disclose it. We don’t visit businesses in person and can’t guarantee the quality of products or services you may buy from a business. We are simply helping you with the homework and encourage you to always ask further questions of the business before buying anything.
HOW WE MAKE MONEY
To pay for all this work, our media sales colleagues sell advertising, which is clearly disclosed. The advertising is sold as Sponsored listings on the “Top Dispensary” and guide listings. These are marked “Paid Advertisement.” These can be purchased both by businesses that our curators determined to be a “Top Dispensary” and by relevant businesses that were not. If a “Top Dispensary” chooses not to buy a sponsored listing, it will remain on the list.
HOW TO REACH US
If you have any questions or comments or would like to report discrepancies about any of the “Top Dispensary” information we publish, please let us know at support.bestof@hearst.com.