Reviews
Correction, clarification, update, note, and retraction compared
Correction types compared across factual errors, clarifications, updates, editor's notes, apologies, expressions of concern, withdrawals, and retractions.
Contributor
Sofia B. Hayes
Similar terms do not always describe the same thing. Subject: News Literacy and Verification: news, cod. Sofia B. Hayes is the editorial byline assigned to this area. Practical guides, comparisons and the questions behind a choice form this editorial remit. This is an editorial pen name used by the publication, not a claim of an independently verified personal identity.
Guides
How to Write Newsroom Correction Notices and Publish Them
Learn how to write newsroom correction notices, publish fixes across channels, notify people harmed, and log approvals and channel confirmations.
Features
Fictional case: correcting a crisis casualty count
Casualty count correction case showing how a newsroom fixes a merged disaster toll, updates every channel, explains source overlap, and changes its workflow.
Rules
Common breaking news verification problems
Breaking news verification problems include recycled media, merged casualty counts, premature cause, alert confusion, unsafe sourcing, and silent updates.
Maintenance
Rapid crisis verification checklist for the first hour
Rapid crisis verification checklist for authority, alerts, place, time, live media, casualty figures, protective instructions, update ownership, and corrections.
Guides
How newsrooms verify breaking news and crisis claims with an incident ledger and five tracks
Breaking news and crisis claims: one incident ledger, consequence triage, authority mapping, alert fields, five verification tracks and reconciliation.
Maintenance
Synthetic media verification checklist for suspicious footage
Synthetic media verification checklist for claim framing, evidence preservation, source contact, provenance, context, forensic review, and publication controls.
Reviews
Synthetic media evidence types compared, and what each proves
Synthetic media evidence types compared across provenance, source access, context, file metadata, forensic artifacts, detector scores, and corroboration.
Guides
How to verify suspected AI images, video, and audio
A verifier's order of work for suspected AI media is to preserve the original file, confirm the person, check the event, then test the artifacts.
Features
Fictional case: correcting a premature election winner claim
A fictional county race shows how incomplete unofficial returns produce a false winner call, and how a newsroom repairs headline, card and alerts.
Reviews
Election and political evidence types compared
Election evidence types compared across returns, projections, canvass, certification, audits, recounts, filings, lawsuits, polls, and campaign speech.
Maintenance
How to verify a political video before you share it: trace, then label
Trace a political video to its earliest upload, read the end card and campaign accounts, then pick an honest label: campaign, unattributed or unverified.
Maintenance
How to Verify a Canadian Government Benefit Payment Date Claim
Match each federal benefit to CRA or Service Canada, check the official payment calendar, and treat unverified ATIP or political ads as unproven.
Maintenance
How to Verify a US or Canadian Amber Alert Text Before You Forward It
How to check a US or Canadian Amber Alert text before forwarding: sender, official feeds, provincial coordinators, and the scam signals that fail every test.
Guides
Election claim checking: a practical guide
Election claim checking starts with jurisdiction and count stage, then verifies results, campaign filings, lawsuits and official statements against records.
Features
Fictional case: correcting a complaint reported as a ruling
Court record correction case showing how a newsroom mistakes complaint allegations for a ruling, reconstructs the docket, rewrites the story, and fixes each surface.
Rules
Common public record reporting problems, and how to avoid them
Public record reporting problems explained, from mistaken status and missing versions to weak searches, unsupported redaction claims, citations, and lost context.
Reviews
Public document types and statuses compared
Public document types compared across bills, laws, proposed and final rules, notices, guidance, filings, pleadings, orders, minutes, audits, and archival records.
Rules
Is That ATIP Response Real? How to Verify Access to Information Records
Learn how to verify access to information request records from Canadian federal and provincial portals. Check release letters, exemptions, and file numbers.
Guides
Elections Canada vs Provincial Commissions: Where to Verify Campaign Finance Claims
To verify campaign finance claim Canada, use the right database. Federal and provincial filings are searched separately, and errors carry real costs.
Guides
EPA Water Quality Reports: A Verification Checklist for Local Claims
Verify an EPA water quality report before repeating a local claim. Use ECHO, state portals, and Clean Water Act standards to confirm what the data shows.
Guides
How to Verify a Product Recall Claim Before You Report It
Verify product recall claim before you report it by checking CPSC, FDA and NHTSA records, not the press release. Questions and red flags for editors.
Guides
School Board Meeting Claims: Check the Agenda and Minutes Before Sharing
School Board Meeting Claims: verify the agenda and minutes before you share. Texas and California open meetings deadlines, draft minute risks, and what to wait for.
Guides
Verify Student Loan Forgiveness Claim: Official Sources
To verify student loan forgiveness claim details, check named federal programs and laws, Federal Student Aid, and the state agency that administers the program.
Guides
What CDC and FDA datasets actually say about health claims
CDC and FDA datasets describe populations over set periods, so a viral number usually misreads what the underlying survey data measures about health trends.
Guides
Is a TMZ clip real? Los Angeles celebrity claim verification
Los Angeles celebrity claim verification starts with the original TMZ upload, then checks video context, court access, local records, and source claims.
Rules
State public records compared: California, Texas, and New York request rules
State public records request rules differ sharply across California, Texas, and New York, from 10-day deadlines to attorney general rulings and FOIL appeals.
Rules
How US defamation law and the First Amendment shape what you can share
US defamation law First Amendment rules decide what you can safely share: actual malice, the fair report privilege, Section 230, and state anti-SLAPP statutes.
Guides
Government Records Verification: Status and Context
Government records verification checks provenance, status, version and context, then preserves the citation another reader needs to retrace a claim.
Features
Fictional case: correcting a retracted health study story
Retracted health study correction case showing how a coding error invalidates a result and how a newsroom repairs its headline, chart, archives, and social claims.
Features
Fictional case: correcting a fake emergency-agency account
Emergency-account correction case tracing a lookalike profile, false evacuation claim, unsafe link, newsroom alert error, public repair, and prevention controls.
Features
Fictional case: correcting a circular citation that became a fact
Circular citation correction case showing how one unsupported claim spread across reports, passed weak checks, and required a transparent article-wide repair.
Rules
8 Source Evaluation Mistakes That Distort a Fact-Check
Eight source evaluation mistakes can distort a fact-check, from outlet ratings and copy-counting to false certainty. Learn the warning signs and fixes.
Guides
How to check an unfamiliar account and viral post
Use independent contact routes, platform history, reverse-image tools, and primary records to verify a social media account and viral post before sharing.
Reviews
Evidence source types compared: firsthand accounts, records, experts and reports
Evidence source types compared by proximity, scope, independence, strengths, limits, and best uses for checking events, numbers, causes, and quotations.
Reviews
Health research evidence types compared, from trials to case reports
Health research evidence types compared across laboratory work, case reports, observational studies, trials, qualitative research, and systematic reviews.
Guides
How to audit a clinical study story before it runs
Audit a clinical study story by pulling the paper, protocol and registry record, then checking every claim, number and quote against the data.
Maintenance
Image and video verification checklist for the desk
Image and video verification checklist for preservation, source identity, origin, metadata, location, time, editing, provenance, safety, credit, and publication.
Guides
Science health news verification: a practical guide
Science health news verification: trace a claim through the paper, trial record, supplement, correction notice and FDA product record before repeating it.
Maintenance
Science and health story sign-off checklist for editors
A science and health story sign-off checklist for editors: test the draft wording, regulator terms, evidence base and visuals before a health claim runs.
Reviews
Social account identity signals compared
Social account identity signals compared across badges, profile labels, official links, history, direct confirmation, posting patterns, and platform limits.
Maintenance
Chart verification checklist: the reviewer's sign-off
A chart verification checklist for the person who signs off: what the reviewer receives, reproduces and checks before a chart, caption and headline go out.
Reviews
Visual verification methods compared, from reverse search to metadata
Visual verification methods compared across reverse search, source interviews, metadata, geolocation, chronolocation, provenance, and forensic analysis.