Methodology & Corrections
How we source, weigh, verify, and correct. Transparency is not a footer link here; it is the product.
The rule
Every factual assertion on this site traces to a primary document held in our archive — a transcript, an email, a government filing, a peer-reviewed paper, an official briefing record. We quote those documents to file and, where applicable, page. When a conclusion belongs to investigators, prosecutors, or commentators rather than to the record itself, we say so in the same sentence.
How we weigh a source
Not all "documents" are equal. We tier every source, and the tier governs how we may use it:
- Tier A — Primary government, intelligence, or grant records. Assessments, cables, briefing readouts, grant progress reports. Strongest; quoted directly with date, originator, and any redaction noted.
- Tier B — Primary oversight & whistleblower records. Committee memos, inspector-general referrals, member letters. These often contain allegations and characterizations; we quote the underlying evidence they cite and attribute the framing to the body that made it.
- Tier C — Primary internal correspondence. Emails and process records. Useful for chronology and contemporaneous state of mind.
- Tier D — Scientific publications. Cited to the original journal, for what the paper claimed — not as proof the claim is true.
- Tier E — Reproduced press. Establishes only what was said publicly, never the truth of an underlying fact.
A standing consequence of this: a claim may never rest on a Tier-D or Tier-E source as proof of an underlying fact.
Attribution discipline
We separate the dated record from the meaning placed upon it. A congressional committee may say an email shows an official "prompted" a paper "to disprove" a theory; we report the dated email as fact and attribute the words "prompted" and "to disprove" to the committee. We do not assert motive or intent in our own voice.
Fairness
Every investigation includes an explicit account of what the record does not establish, and represents the public responses and denials of the people it names. Where origins, science, or policy remain genuinely contested, we say they are contested. The strongest version of a story is one its subject cannot fairly call unfair.
Verification
Quotations are checked against the source file, not against a press summary of it. Scanned and image-only documents are read directly. We pin testimony to page. Our first published investigation contains a worked example: a quotation initially attributed to one official was traced during fact-check to another, and corrected before publication.
Corrections policy
We correct promptly and visibly. When we change the substance of a published claim, we mark the correction on the article and date it; we do not silently edit the record. Pre-publication fact-check changes are noted where instructive. To report a suspected error, contact the editors with the article title and the specific sentence at issue, and we will review it against the source.
A note on our name
This outlet's name is pointed. Our reporting is not. We hold the documents to a neutral standard regardless of the masthead, and we publish the evidence in full so readers can judge it for themselves. If the record does not support a claim, we do not make it.