Source and claim verification checklist for reporters

Bound the assignment

Fix the intended audience, central question, deadline, jurisdiction, and matters outside the assignment before searching. This boundary makes the work proportionate and clarifies what the check cannot establish. Use risk planning to identify assertions where an error could cause serious consequences, then allocate attention accordingly.

Enter material assertions in a claim ledger, splitting compound statements into separately testable parts. Label each as fact, interpretation, opinion, allegation, estimate, or prediction. A claim that could cause substantial harm deserves a correspondingly careful publication threshold; unresolved points should remain unresolved in the copy.

Retrieve original material

Locate the earliest available record, dataset, or media file, and note its creator or issuer, date, version, and custody path. Inspect the complete item rather than an excerpt or screenshot. Record redactions, absent attachments, edits, conversion limits, and any other material you could not examine.

For records and datasets, check data definitions, measurement units, population, period, exclusions, revisions, and quality, then recalculate from raw values where possible. Retain source materials and file details; consult National Archives guidance and the Library of Congress page on digital format descriptions when preserving files for later review.

When media could have been translated, transcribed, or altered, document how those operations occurred and involve a responsible person. For synthetic media verification, separate what the material directly supports from inference. Visual checks, including metadata review, can guide further testing but do not establish authenticity alone.

Qualify each source

Confirm a source's identity, role, organization, contact route, and access to the subject. Separate firsthand observation from information repeated elsewhere. For an anonymous contributor, ensure an accountable editor knows who they are, document why anonymity is warranted, and ask whether a narrower description can preserve useful context.

Check conflicts, incentives, funding, advocacy, litigation, and relevant advertising disclosures; verify identity details independently where practical. Ask what a person could observe or access instead of treating confidence as proof. Use claim mapping and source categories to connect each account to the assertions it can support.

The Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics promotes verification before publication, original sources where possible, clear identification, context, and corrections or updates. It is voluntary guidance, not law, and cannot settle whether a particular assertion is true; the evidence still has to carry that burden.

Match proof to wording

Place the proposed wording beside the evidence and ask whether the material supports the claim at that exact scope. A filing can show that an assertion was submitted without proving its contents; personal experience can support one account without establishing a wider pattern.

Investigate conflicts among materials instead of smoothing them away, and do not convert correlation into causation. Lack of located evidence is not proof that an event did not happen unless the search and subject make that inference defensible. For survey estimates and other statistical claims, separate the measured result from the story's interpretation.

Find a separate route

Follow reposts, syndication, releases, and circular citations back to their origins. Count independent paths to evidence rather than pages repeating one assertion. Several accounts relying on the same record or release remain dependent on it, regardless of how widely the claim has been repeated.

Give a responsible subject a fair chance to address a material allegation. Save the questions, response deadline, reply, and any declined or unanswered request. Include evidence that weakens the preferred conclusion, then record why the contrary material does or does not change the finding.

Calibrate what readers see

Choose wording that reflects the evidence's strength and scope. Use confirmed, reported, alleged, and estimated precisely, and attribute or directly support statements about motive and intent. Keep units, denominators, periods, and uncertainty attached to figures; preserve the meaning and conditions of quotations.

Review headlines, images, captions, credits, dates, and depicted locations as carefully as the text. Label commentary, satire, simulation, reconstruction, and illustration so they cannot be mistaken for documentary evidence. Check alerts, newsletter text, and social copy too, since each may claim more than the evidence supports.

Preserve a traceable record

Log search terms, databases, calls, visits, and access dates. Preserve the rules used to select claims and sources, connecting each finding to pages or files. Include records catalog searches and distinguish material that was paywalled, deleted, private, or inaccessible; never imply that an item was inspected when it was not.

The International Fact-Checking Network's Code of Principles sets expectations for nonpartisanship, source transparency, organizational and funding disclosure, methodology, and corrections among signatories. It is an organizational standard, not a promise that every judgment is correct. Readers must still be able to assess the evidence and reasoning behind a conclusion.

Challenge and maintain the findings

Ask another person to reproduce the central finding from the saved record. Route the highest-risk political assertions, including those relying on campaign finance records, through political claim checking. Compare the final text with its headline, deck, chart, newsletter, alert, and social copy, then retain the evidence set and published version.

Keep a visible correction contact route and identify every surface that would need changing if an error emerged. Mark a check not applicable when appropriate and explain why rather than silently skipping material work. No fixed source count replaces judgment: a narrow finding may rest on a conclusive record, while dependent accounts may establish little.

A source may review a quotation or technical detail, but should not control framing, evidence, or conclusion. Retain the claim ledger, source materials and versions, notes, recordings, calculations, contact attempts, decisions, and final copy, subject to lawful retention and security rules. A complete audit trail helps another person reproduce and assess the finding.