3. How to Fact-Check

By the end of this chapter, you should have an idea of how to fact-check a standard work of journalism, including how to prepare for and conduct fact-checking interviews, how to work with documentary sources, and how to format your fact-checking documents and keep comprehensive records. In the sections from General Methodology to After the Fact-Check, we elaborate on steps 4 to 9 of the editorial process as described in the previous chapter. In Variations and Adapting to Constraints, we acknowledge that not every publication will be able to meet the ideal outlined here, and we discuss how to adapt these guidelines for different newsroom structures and resource constraints.

The practical advice given here is inspired by the thorough methodology practised by many magazines in the glory days of editorial fact-checking. It has also been informed by our experiences in the industry over the past decade, additional research into journalism practices and ethics, and conversations with more than fifty journalists, researchers, and community members (whose names are listed at the end of Chapter One.

General Methodology

Fact-checking can generally be broken down into three steps:

Verification: Given a statement and the reporter's sources for that statement, the fact checker confirms that the statement is factual, identifies errors and suggests corrections, or determines that neither of these options is possible.
Investigation: The fact checker assesses the credibility of the sources used by the reporter and finds out what other credible sources say about the statement in question. Is there any nuance or context missing from the statement? Have any sourcing considerations been overlooked or misjudged?
Documentation: After the statement is confirmed or corrected, the fact checker preserves all sources, documents, and methodology for their (and their publication's) fact-checking records.

The reporter is responsible for ensuring the accuracy of every word that appears in their piece; the fact checker should be able to defend the accuracy of every word. This requires a documented source for every statement—even the obvious or seemingly insignificant ones. Being "checking sure" that a fact is correct is a higher standard than being "virtually certain." Doing the work to collect corroborating evidence, even if the fact is considered common knowledge, is a more reliable path to accuracy than relying on what we think we know.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of details that should always be checked in a work of journalism:

Names, dates, and locations
Quotes and the facts within quotes
Descriptions of people, places, and events
Pronouns, identifiers, and descriptors
Causal explanations
The factual bases of opinions
The internal logic of a story, including its chronology

While it's important to check every fact in a story, it's also important to prioritize where you spend your time. Some facts are easily verifiable and uncontroversial, so they can be checked quickly; others are relatively extraneous and, if they cannot be verified, can likely be cut from the story without affecting the narrative; others, however, deserve more time and investigative effort. Over time, with experience and the support of their editorial team, fact checkers learn to make these kinds of pragmatic decisions on their own.

Some facts may not be verifiable—either because the necessary sources do not exist or because they are inaccessible. (That rare book you're looking for may be impossible to access before your deadline, or the second party in an argument may vehemently refuse to speak with journalists.) In these cases, the fact checker tries to find other ways of corroborating the facts, with the help of the reporter. But in keeping with the value of transparency, the fact checker is also responsible for recognizing the limitations of verification in various contexts and communicating them to the editorial team.

It's important to convey the uncertainty surrounding a particular fact to the story's handling editor so that they can decide how best to adapt the story. They may choose to make the uncertainty itself part of the story: transparency about what journalists do and do not know is a way of giving audiences the power to make informed judgments on the information and narratives presented.

Fact checkers only suggest changes to a story; in most cases (unless the head of research becomes involved), the handling editor has final say on how a fact checker's corrections are implemented.

Below, we describe the standard methodology for fact-checking (separated into Preparation, Verification and Investigation, and Documentation) and go through some Topic-Specific Advice.

Preparation

Once the fact checker has been assigned a story, they read the latest draft to get a sense of what the assignment will require. Even if the story is still being edited and they haven't received the reporter's research package yet, it's a good idea to get started as early as possible: note how many people they think they will have to call, what kinds of gathered sources they expect to receive, and any foreseeable difficulties in verification. The fact checker also conducts background research that will help them become more familiar with the topic of the story and assess the appropriateness of the sourcing decisions made by the reporter—for example, by reading literature reviews, encyclopedia entries, and news articles about the topic at hand. (As we note in Chapter Eight, this is especially important if the story is about a marginalized community with which the fact checker is not familiar.)

Once the fact checker has received the research package, they make a copy of the annotated draft and remove the footnotes. This will be the checking copy. The checking copy is the fact checker's master document, where they track their work as they go, and it's also the primary reference for anyone else who may later go through the fact-checking folder in order to determine the sourcing for a fact.

Even though the fact checker builds their fact-checking folder digitally (see the Documentation section of this chapter), we recommend printing out a copy of the story when beginning a fact check. Doing so can help the fact checker organize their thoughts and plan out their approach to the check. We advise printing this copy double-spaced to leave room for comments, in pen or pencil, on the document.

As the fact checker reads through the draft (or printed copy), they keep the reporter's research package close at hand so that they can refer to their sources and comments. They pay special attention to the reporter's annotations: Are any sources missing? Do any interview subjects require special care? Is anything unclear? If so, the fact checker compiles their questions and concerns to send to the reporter, or they schedule a meeting with the reporter, handling editor, and head of research to discuss the best way forward.

If the fact checker has any questions about how to fact-check the story—for example, because they think a source will ask for accommodations (see Chapter Seven) or they are unsure how to assess a source (see Chapter Four)—they discuss them with the head of research before getting started.

If there are illustrations, photographs, or infographics accompanying a work of journalism, they need to be fact-checked alongside everything else. The fact checker should receive these materials in the research package and include them in their checking copy and checked copy; if they don't receive any, they should check in with the handling editor, since the reporter may not have been involved in creating graphics for their story.

Fact-checkers must be critical readers. If you don't clearly understand what a sentence means, you can't very well check its veracity. Also, the facts won't always present themselves to you on a plate—you may need to extract them from statements in which fact and opinion are intertwined. Or you may need to infer the facts from passages in which they are not explicitly stated.

—Cynthia Brouse, After the Fact: A Guide to Fact-Checking for Magazines and Other Media (2007)

Verification and Investigation

Fact checkers work with two kinds of sources: gathered sources (the records and documents they consult) and interviewed sources (the people they speak with). These require different approaches and methods of documentation, which we outline below.

Whatever sources the fact checker is working with, their primary activity is to consider each isolated fact, consult the source the reporter has attributed it to, and confirm that everything lines up. But they sometimes have to do more investigation to clarify the fact, refute it, or attribute it to more reliable sources.

Shannon Palus, a veteran science fact checker and senior editor for Slate, says that a fact checker needs to know more than what is necessary for the confirmation or correction of the statement in question. For example, "last Christmas" in a 2022 story should become "December 25, 2021" in a fact-checking document. That level of detail may not be necessary for the story, but it's crucial for triangulating with other sources and ensuring that the timeline of the story is accurate.

Similarly, if the reporter uses a complex term or technical jargon in their story, the fact checker finds out what it means and includes that definition in their files. In doing so, they verify that the reporter has used the term appropriately, even if the term isn't defined in the story itself.

After reading through the story in full (we recommend doing so more than once), the first thing the fact checker does is contact interviewed sources to schedule fact-checking calls. It's helpful to do this early, since not everyone will respond right way. The reporter should have made notes about any interview subjects' particularities—frequent travellers who are difficult to contact, for example. The fact checker can use this information to plan ahead for their fact-checking calls.

The fact checker's initial message to a source (usually an email) should explain their intentions clearly, name the reporter, describe the topic of the story, and remind the source of when the original interview happened. It should identify the sender as a fact checker and explain that it's their job to make sure that the sources in the piece (and their ideas, work, and experiences) are presented accurately and fairly. It should then request a phone call within a reasonable time frame. (We usually request that sources respond within a week, but it depends on individual deadlines.) It's a good idea to leave time between the initial message and the first phone call to prepare questions and conduct research using gathered sources.

If the source does not answer, subsequent messages should include a firm deadline and communicate clearly that, if they do not speak with the fact checker in time, the checker may resort to using interview recordings or transcripts for confirmation (depending on what is available). Correspondence between the fact checker and the interviewed sources should be documented in the fact-checking folder.

As the fact checker is waiting for responses to their interview requests, they begin isolating the facts from the story however they prefer (we like to use coloured pens on the printed copy of the draft—one colour for each interviewed source, another for all gathered sources). During this process, they make notes about the kinds of sourcing the reporter has attributed to each fact. These notes will be helpful for working through the fact check, especially if the story is particularly long or complex.

While delineating the facts of the story, the fact checker should remain conscious of the big picture, make sure that the facts are presented without significant omissions, and confirm that the takeaway of the story is fair, plausible, and backed up by the available evidence. If there's a narrative arc to the story, it can be helpful to draw out a timeline to ensure that everything is in logical order.

For any detail that seems shaky or controversial, the fact checker should be proactive in finding extra sources, even if they weren't originally consulted by the reporter for the story. However, if the fact checker is thinking of scheduling interviews with new sources, they should check with the reporter's research package first. (The reporter may have already reached out to that person and been denied an interview, or they may have a personal relationship that would make the source's participation inappropriate.)

If a fact seems impossible or very difficult to check, the fact checker consults with the head of research. If the fact checker finds that a fact is incorrect or unprovable and has an idea for an alternative, they can suggest it to the handling editor—either during fact-check input or, if it will require a substantial rewrite, earlier on.

Note: it's important for the fact checker to document their work as they go. That means you should read this entire chapter (including the Documentation instructions) before considering yourself ready for your first fact check.

Authoritative and Non-Authoritative Sources

Fact-checking involves sorting through, assessing, and documenting the reporter's gathered sources—the published documents, online media, journal articles, and other records that they consulted during their reporting—as well as having conversations with their interviewed sources.

It's important to think critically about the kinds of sources you have been given. The general rule of editorial fact-checking is that each fact should be confirmed with at least one primary source or two secondary sources. This is a helpful baseline, but it warrants some clarification.

The distinction between primary and secondary sources comes from historical research. For a historian, primary sources were produced during the time period being researched (such as diary entries, letters, and meeting notes) whereas secondary sources were produced later, by people who did not experience the time period first-hand (such as books or articles by other historians). Journalists have adapted this distinction to their own work: in The Chicago Guide to Fact-Checking, Brooke Borel describes primary sources as "the closest you can get to the origin of a fact," while secondary sources "may be a step or more removed from a primary source." Secondary sources interpret the facts via their own sources; primary sources give the facts.

In practice, it can be difficult to clearly and consistently classify sources in this way. Different publications and institutions classify primary and secondary sources differently, and the "one primary source or two secondary sources" rule is not always helpful for fact checkers. Some "secondary" sources, such as encyclopedia articles, can be reliable on their own, while some "primary" sources, such as government websites, can be full of errors. Instead of being guided by the primary/secondary source distinction, fact checkers should distinguish between authoritative and non-authoritative sources. We will discuss this idea at greater length in Chapter Four, but the important point is that authority is fact-relative: the kind of source that suffices to check a fact depends on the fact.

For example, someone's personal website is an authoritative source on how they spell their name and self-identify. But it is not an authoritative source on the ingredients used in the cream sauce at the restaurant they visited last week, even if they wrote a lengthy blog post about it. This is because the fact checker presumably doesn't know how the blog post was reported or according to what standard of accuracy it was produced. Instead, an authoritative source for that cream sauce recipe would be a picture of the recipe book the restaurant used, a phone call with the chef, or a fact-checked review of the restaurant published around the time of the blogger's visit.

The Independence Principle holds that each fact should be checked with at least one authoritative source or, if that is not possible, several independent non-authoritative sources. Fact checkers should avoid citing two news articles to confirm a fact: those articles may have been based on the same report, meaning they are not independent. It would be better to find the report itself and cite it directly.

If a fact can be verified only by non-authoritative sources, it may require in-text attribution to those sources—for example, the addition of "according to the Washington Post." The fact checker can suggest this kind of attribution as a correction in their checked copy.

Authoritative sources include:

People on their own experiences and identities (including autobiographies)
First-hand accounts, such as diary entries, photographs, video, audio, or witnesses of an event
An expert or spokesperson who represents community consensus on an issue
Knowledge (of any form) that has already been fact-checked or has been produced using reliable methods and with integrity

Non-authoritative sources include:

News articles on descriptions of people or events
Witnesses describing other people's experiences
People close to a person quoted or mentioned in a story
Knowledge (of any form) that is not known to have been fact-checked or produced using reliable methods and with integrity

These lists can help the fact checker evaluate the sources cited in the reporter's research package. Whether a source should be considered authoritative depends on the fact and on the context of the story in which it is presented. For example, the same person can serve as an authoritative source on their own experience of an event while serving as a non-authoritative source on their sibling's experience of the same event.

There are many situations in which a non-authoritative source will nevertheless be the best source available. For example, a person close to someone mentioned in a story may be the most authoritative source possible if the person mentioned is not available to speak. But, because the friend of the source is a non-authoritative source, the Independence Principle dictates that the fact checker find additional corroborating sources and that the reporter be transparent with readers about the fact that they weren't able to speak with the most authoritative source on the matter.

Sources You Gather

Every gathered source used to confirm or refute a fact is saved in the fact-checking folder (as a PDF, media file, or otherwise) and assigned a number in its title. The fact checker marks the passages of the source that are directly relevant to the fact check so they can be easily found by others reviewing their work later on. If the source is a PDF, for example, the fact checker highlights the specific lines of text that confirm the fact (or the lines that refute it, if the source is in support of a correction the fact checker is suggesting). Media such as audio or video should include the relevant timestamps and, if possible, audio transcriptions.

In Chapter Four, we explain in greater detail how a fact checker may go about assessing the authority of a gathered source by asking how, why, where, when, and by whom it was created. Most of the time, the sources used by the reporter are adequate, and the fact checker needs only to confirm that the sources provided in the research package correspond to the facts of the story. If the fact is a direct quotation from a gathered source, make sure the punctuation and spelling has been preserved—the quotation should match how it was written in the original source, even if it conflicts with your publication's house style.

For books that cannot be saved as PDFs, the fact checker scans or photographs pages that contain relevant information. Note that books—just like newspapers, websites, and other such records—are typically not fact-checked, so they do not count as authoritative sources on anything apart from their author's experiences, thoughts, and opinions. In The Fact Checker's Bible, Sarah Harrison Smith writes that "some books may be even more dangerous to check from than newspapers" because so few books have been produced with fact-checking in mind. If the reporter has used a book as a source for something other than a personal fact about the book's author, look at the references in the body of the text, the footnotes, or the bibliography to try to find out where the author got that information.

Sources You Speak With

Nearly every person quoted, cited by the reporter (even on background), named, or otherwise identifiable in a piece needs to be contacted during fact-checking. The fact checker may need to call additional people who weren't initially interviewed for the piece in order to verify hard-to-source facts. Together, these are the interviewed sources.

No one should be surprised to read their name in a journalistic story. It's important that the fact checker contact everyone (including companies, organizations, and institutions) named in a story, even if they weren't originally interviewed by the reporter (though the reporter should have at least tried to get in touch with them). The fact checker calls each source in turn to go over the relevant facts of the story, including everything the source originally told the reporter and any additional information from the story that concerns them.

For example, if the reporter names someone who was involved in a car accident, that name may be available on the police report included in the research package. But the fact checker will still make a reasonable effort to contact them to ensure that the report accurately conveys their experience and the spelling of their name. If the reporter reached out to that source earlier and was denied an interview or never heard back, they should have included copies of their unanswered emails in their research package, which the fact-checker will then save in their fact-checking folder. Depending on how significant a role the person plays in the story, it may also be appropriate for the fact checker to reach out again and request a fact-checking interview despite already having evidence that the source did not respond to the reporter. These new attempts to contact the source (emails, the times and dates of phone calls and voicemails, etc.) will also be recorded in the fact-checking folder.

An exception can be made for public information about public figures, which can often be confirmed with other authoritative sources. The fact checker does not need to arrange a fact-checking call with the prime minister, for example, to confirm a statement from a press conference—though they may want to reach out to the prime minister's media team for a transcript of the press conference if one is not readily available elsewhere. Any private details about the prime minister's life, however, are ideally checked with them directly, not with their media team.

On top of the reporter's sources, the fact checker should consider calling anyone they think may help them confirm a fact, such as witnesses of an event or friends of an interviewed source. If the fact checker is struggling to check a story because of its technicality or complexity, they can reach out to an expert in the relevant field—someone the reporter did not speak with—and arrange a fact-checking interview to discuss the relevant facts. Many experts are happy to help, and if they're too busy to participate, they will often point you in the direction of others to ask.

Experts can also provide general context for a piece beyond the specifics the fact checker needs to verify. Speaking with an expert early in the checking process is a good way of getting up to speed on the subject matter. For example, if you are fact-checking a story about nuclear physics that was written by an experienced science writer, it may help to speak with a nuclear physicist about the basics of their field before getting started.

Fact-checking calls with background sources and experts are always on background—for the sake of the Two-Layer Principle, the fact checker would not include a quote from a fact-checking call in the text of the story without it going through additional verification. When contacting additional sources for verification purposes, the fact checker should be clear about why they are reaching out and explain that the call is purely for background corroboration, ensuring the source understands that they are not doing original reporting but instead trying to verify information reported by someone else.

We advise against using interview recordings and transcripts to check people's quotes and personal facts apart from in special cases (see Chapters Seven and Eight), such as when it is impossible to reach someone directly. We also advise against emailing questions to a source unless there are good reasons for doing so (such as accessibility considerations, which we discuss in Chapter Eight). Practically speaking, it's much easier to build a rapport when speaking with someone over the phone, on video, or in person. Establishing a baseline of trust is important for any journalistic endeavour, and fact-checking is no different: a conversation can go a long way in making a source feel comfortable, heard, and respected.

Open conversation is also most conducive to accuracy as it allows the fact checker to discuss the facts with the source in detail and, if a fact has been misstated, to make sure that they understand why the statement is wrong and what a correction would require. Sources will often ask for questions to be emailed, but if the fact checker explains the benefits of a live conversation, they will usually agree to a call instead.

I want to go to people even when the interviews are taped, because things change or you could ask the question slightly differently and get a different answer.

—Peter Canby, former head of fact-checking, The New Yorker

Those of us who were checking in the pre-web days can scarcely recall how we fact-checked without it. One way was by very quickly losing our fear of telephoning strangers, since that was our primary checking tool. My colleagues and I used to complain of getting "checker's ear," a kind of red rash caused by hours of contact with a telephone receiver. Young checkers today, with the web at their fingertips, sometimes give me a terrified look when I suggest they should telephone a source, as much as to say, "Is that allowed?" E-mail and text-messaging have made the telephone call seem a tad antiquated, but the phone is still a powerful tool. And if your goal is to use fact-checking as a stepping stone to becoming a writer, talking to sources on the phone is excellent training.

—Cynthia Brouse, After the Fact: A Guide to Fact-Checking for Magazines and Other Media (2007)

If an interviewed source has not returned repeated calls or emails, the fact checker notifies the handling editor and head of research promptly so that they can decide on an alternative course of action to verify the fact. Fact checkers should avoid putting all of their eggs in one basket—while waiting for one person to call back, call another and then another.

If a source is reluctant to participate in the fact-checking process, it can help to remind them that fact-checking is a service they are being provided: it is in their best interest to participate since doing so will help ensure that they are being accurately represented. Inform them that, if they refuse to participate, you will have to rely instead on audio recordings and interview notes (if there are any) to fact-check their contribution to the story. In some cases, however, a source's refusal to participate in fact-checking may mean that their contribution to the piece is modified or removed entirely. Preserve these exchanges for your records.

Conducting Fact-Checking Interviews

As soon as the fact checker has sent out requests to interviewed sources (even before any have responded), they begin to prepare for fact-checking calls. The fact checker does background research before every call, checking that none of the facts they're hoping to confirm with a source are obviously wrong.

Ideally, the fact checker will be able to schedule fact-checking calls ahead of time and will prepare questions for sources while conducting documentary research. That way, they will be familiar with most of the story's gathered sources by the time a fact-checking call takes place.

Here are the steps to preparing a list of fact-checking questions for an interviewed source:

Open a new document (a separate one for every source) and save it under the source's name and their assigned letter of the alphabet (this is important for Documentation). At the top of the document, note the source's name and contact information.
Below their contact information, leave space to note the date(s) and time(s) you called the source, the medium you used (phone, Facebook message, Skype, Zoom, etc.), whether they answered or you left a voicemail, and any other pertinent details. It's important to document this process, even if it's a long line of unanswered voicemails, because you may later need to reference the date and time a conversation took place or prove that you made reasonable efforts to contact someone.
Refer to your checking copy (and possibly your printed copy of the story, if you decided to print), in which you previously delineated the facts. Ideally, you will have underlined in colour, highlighted, or otherwise demarcated every fact in the piece that was attributed to the source in question. Read through the story and write down each of these facts separately in your interview document.

Make sure you have not missed any facts that should be presented to the source during the call—even if the reporter did not attribute them to that person. For example, if the reporter included a description of the food at a conference, and you know that the source you're speaking with attended the same conference, you could include that food fact in your list of questions for the source, to see if they remember the same thing. Make sure to note in your document (and clarify to the source in the call) that this information is not attributed to them in the text.
Now that you have compiled the facts in your document, turn them into a numbered list, rephrasing the statements as questions as you go. You should begin your list of questions with the spelling of the source's name (if they are named in the story), their pronouns, their occupation and position (if relevant), and their date of birth (if relevant). (If they are confused about needing to provide their date of birth instead of simply confirming their age, explain that you need to make sure that their printed age will be accurate whenever the final version of the story is published; their date of birth likely won't be published.)
When rephrasing facts as questions, paraphrase everything (including direct quotes) except for the most technical details and any personal language (see Chapter Five). The facts in your list of questions should be presented in manageable chunks instead of full sentences. One statement from the story may be separated into several questions for a source: it's your job to parse out the facts from the statement, understand them, and check them individually during the call. Make sure to rephrase facts as yes-or-no questions or statements that can be confirmed or denied rather than as open-ended questions; this saves time and prevents confusion.
Be ready to ask follow-up questions. Remember that your job will be done only when you understand what was right and wrong in a story, how a statement should be corrected, and why—not just when you have a yes or no response about a fact.
For quotations, verify not only that the person said what has been attributed to them but also that its content is accurate. For example, "The Statue of Liberty is the tallest human-built structure in the world," Randy said, has two main facts: (1) that Randy said this about the Statue of Liberty, and (2) that the Statue of Liberty is indeed the tallest human-built structure. If Randy has authority on the subject, he can be an authoritative source for both facts. If not, you will have to confirm the second one independently—and during your phone call with Randy, you can ask for advice on how to confirm the statement. (A third and fourth fact to check would be: (3) that the Statue of Liberty is the correct name of the structure, and (4) that it is indeed human-built. These should be easy to check independently.)
Once you've written out the questions you plan to ask a source, rearrange them in your document. Don't list them in the same order in which the facts appear in the story—journalistic stories tend to begin with the most dramatic or controversial details, which is not how we like to begin our interactions with sources.

It's best to begin by asking the least difficult or controversial questions. You can even include some buffer questions at the beginning of the call or throughout to help the source feel comfortable and ensure they understand how fact-checking works before getting into the grittier details. (For example, you can ask them to confirm a few details about their hometown or their workplace, even if those details won't make it into the final draft.) Categorizing questions by subject can also help structure your conversation. (We give more suggestions for ensuring the source's comfort during a fact-checking call in Chapter Seven.)

End with the most controversial questions so that, if the source hangs up or refuses to continue, you minimize the number of facts for which you are left without confirmation.
The final version of your interview document should include the source's name, their contact information, a record of your communications with them (or at least communication attempts), and a numbered list of questions. The document should be assigned a letter in its title and saved along with the other interview documents in your fact-checking folder.

I have a long-espoused philosophy of what I call controlled explosions, which is that, if you have somebody saying something that you know is likely to be controversial when it's published, oftentimes you'll have writers and editors say, "Don't check that with the person because the person will completely blow up." The standard of that controlled explosion is: If they're going to blow up on us about this issue, it should happen before publication and not after publication.

—Peter Canby, former head of fact-checking, The New Yorker

Once you have prepared the document with your list of questions for someone, you are ready to conduct a fact-checking interview with them. (You can also send the list of questions to the source via email, if that's how you've decided to conduct the interview—in which case you should make sure that you have written everything out clearly and with enough detail.)

It's helpful to begin each call with a quick explanation of the fact-checking process since sources may not be familiar with editorial fact-checking. The explanation might go something like this:

"My job as a fact-checker is to go through the story line by line and make sure that every statement is accurate and backed by credible sources. I call each person the reporter interviewed to make sure that we are quoting them and representing their work fairly and accurately. This fact-checking call is your opportunity to ensure we have understood everything you previously told the reporter. During the call, I will phrase every fact as a statement or question, and you can simply answer yes if it's accurate. If it's not accurate, please tell me why and what should be changed or clarified. Do you have any questions before we get started?" Be sure to name the reporter so that the source knows whom you are referring to.

Even though fact-checking can feel like an exact science, the phone calls you conduct should be respectful, polite, and conversational. The source should feel that you are a good listener who cares about their perspective. But you should also be clear about your role as a fact checker: the call should not feel so informal that the source misunderstands its purpose and starts giving longer or more open-ended answers. The source should understand your fact-checking standards and feel comfortable telling you when they're not confident enough to confirm a fact.

Never misrepresent what you're doing, even with a source who may be at odds with the story. You don't need to give away the precise angle of the reporter's story unless it is directly relevant to the source you're speaking with—the questions you ask during the call will likely give them all the information they need. But, if the source asks for more detail, you should be transparent about the subject matter and tone. (For example, if you're speaking with an environmental researcher to confirm general facts about the climate crisis, you can tell them that "___ is writing about the negative effects of coal mining on the environment" without needing to specify that ___ is writing about how a certain coal mine is directly responsible for the destruction of its environment. If you're speaking with an employee of the coal mine, however, you should be as specific as necessary for the sake of responsible communication.)

Talking to someone who is going to be accused of wrongdoing in the article you're checking can be a delicate balance. You don't want to be too cautious and risk the source not understanding that they are being accused of something. But you also don't want to be so forthright that you are antagonizing the source unnecessarily—there's a line between being direct and being combative, and you want to stay on the non-aggressive side, usually, as a fact checker. But, if the published piece is going to be accusing a person or a company of something, they should know that, and they should be given a chance to meaningfully respond to that accusation.

—Erin Sylvester, Managing Editor, The Walrus

You should have the list of questions open during your call with a source. Note the date and time of the call at the top of the document. While speaking with the source, note their answers beside each question, and note any clarification that a source may provide with their yes or no answer. Even if a source says yes to a question, it's important to note that confirmation in the document so that it doesn't look like you've skipped the question—a detail that could become especially important in the case of a lawsuit. (We suggest writing a Y or a checkmark beside every confirmed statement.) Be as specific as possible about their responses: those details may be useful when the editor is rewriting a statement in the story. Always let your sources know that you may need to call again with further questions or follow-ups.

Never promise a source that you will make a specific correction in a story—all you can promise is that you will include their answers in your fact-checking records and that you will suggest all necessary corrections to the story's handling editor. If a source is pressing you for more, remind them of your role as a fact checker: you report to the handling editor and the head of research, who make the final decision. If they are still concerned, refer them to the head of research.

Don't send the draft of a story (or an excerpt) to a source or read any passage to them verbatim (see Chapters Seven and Eight for some possible exceptions). You can tell sources who make such requests that the fact-checking process is meant to give them a chance to review any information that pertains to them without having undue influence on the story.

You can make audio recordings of any fact-checking interviews that you expect to be controversial or necessary for reference (for example, if the source denies having said something or if the reporter flags them as having been uncooperative). In general, however, you do not need to record a fact-checking phone call. As long as you are typing the source's answers into your interview document, that document will serve as a record of the conversation.

If a source denies having said something but you have the reporter's interview recording proving that they did, you should tell them that you have it and ask them about the discrepancy. Do so politely—there may be good reasons for their quote to change, or they may simply have misremembered their conversation with the reporter. But, if you have reason to suspect that the source is trying to manipulate the facts (for example, if they are a politician who has been caught saying something problematic, and you have this on tape), you may nevertheless decide to stick with the interview recording. You should consult with the head of research before doing so and then inform the interviewed source of your decision.

If you cannot speak with a source—because they refused to participate in fact-checking, they were unavailable in your time frame, or they did not respond to multiple requests for an interview—you can rely on an audio recording of their interview provided by the reporter (assuming one was provided). First, listen to the audio recording for context. In a document, write down the name of the audio file and time stamps for relevant quotes. Transcribe the quotes verbatim, including the twenty seconds before and twenty seconds after. Save the document and audio recording in your fact-checking folder.

If there are no audio recordings of the interview, you can rely on the reporter's handwritten interview notes. However, if you are fact-checking a quote using handwritten notes, then you can confirm only what has been written down: if the notes are indecipherable scribbles and unconnected words, then they cannot confirm the grammatically correct sentence that the reporter has attributed to the source in their draft. Since handwritten notes are rarely able to capture what someone said verbatim, checking with handwritten notes often means you will have to suggest rewriting or paraphrasing sources' quotes in the text.

Documentation

We cannot overemphasize the importance of this final step in fact-checking: document everything and do it as you go. You will spend many hours (or days) at your desk trying to retrace your steps if you don't keep track of your sources and build your fact-checking folder in tandem with your research work. Avoiding this is worth the minor inconvenience of documenting your work every few minutes.

Documentation is an essential part of fact-checking: it helps with clarity and precision, it allows you to retrace your steps, and it means that any other member of the editorial team can return to your work—even years later—and identify the source of a fact. As previously mentioned, documentation is also helpful for legal protection, to establish that you and your colleagues practised responsible communication.

The fact-checking folder is a digital folder that contains all of the fact checker's work on a story, including every gathered source, every interview document, and PDFs of any email exchanges, as well as the checking and checked copies and the reporter's annotated draft. Typically, fact-checking folders are stored on the publication's internal server or shared network (Google Drive, for example), and they are kept for a minimum of three years, often much longer. The fact-checking folder title should include the fact checker's name, the reporter's name, and the date. It should also be organized into subfolders: one for gathered sources, one for interview documents, and one for all versions and working copies of the story itself.

Every gathered source (a document, an image, a screenshot of a website or social media page, etc.) should be assigned a number in its title. When a fact is attributed to a source, make a comment on that fact in your checking copy and note the number of the source in question. For example, the phrase That afternoon in the park, Allison and Viviane took a break from discussing the ethics of fact-checking and quietly sipped their coffees while looking up at the blue sky might have a comment on the words blue sky with the number 34, where 34 is the number given to a screenshot of the weather report for that day.

Interviews are saved separately (one document for every source) in the fact-checking folder and assigned a letter. The questions in each interview document should be numbered starting at 1. So, if you comment "34, A4, D9" on blue sky, that means it was checked not only using source 34 (the weather report screenshot) but also question 4 in interview A and question 9 in interview D (likely the questions in your interviews with Allison and Viviane that confirm the appearance of the sky that day).

If you have identified a correction, include it in the same comment that lists the sources to which it is attributed. (A correction should always have at least one source attached to it.) Begin the comment with CORRECTION so that others can easily identify them when reviewing your checking copy. The correction should succinctly explain why the statement is wrong and, if possible, suggest a fix. Try to minimize changes to the story and include detailed information so that the handling editor has options for rewording the phrase or section in question. Keep your comments direct and to the point: the editor doesn't need to know the story of how you came to find out that the fact was wrong, but they do need to know how to fix it.

You should also include clarifications or other notes providing relevant contextual information that may affect the accuracy of the story. You can include those comments under the headings CLARIFICATION or NOTE. Trust your gut: anything that you think might be relevant to the accuracy or integrity of the story should be left as a comment for the record. Be clear in your comments about which changes are factually necessary and which are optional.

You may not be able to confirm or refute a particular fact in a story. In this case, make a comment using the label UNCONFIRMED. Your comment should include an explanation of why you did not find the reporter's source sufficient (if they provided one).

Again, all of this should be taking place while you fact-check—the checking copy and fact-checking folder should both grow as you make your way through facts, sources, and interviews. Whenever you find a gathered source, save it immediately, give it a number, and add that number to relevant comments in your checking copy. If it confirms the fact, your work there is done; if it requires a correction, clarification, or other note, include that in the same comment. The same number-assignment process applies to any other relevant piece of information, such as audio recordings, screenshots, and images. Similarly, whenever you have conducted an interview, save that document immediately, give it a letter, and add that letter (plus the question number) to relevant comments in your checking copy.

In the end, your fact-checking folder should include every gathered source you've used in your fact-check (numbered), all of your correspondence and interviews with interviewed sources (lettered), the reporter's annotated draft for your records, and your checking copy. Eventually, it will also include your checked copy, the top read questions, and the post-input copy. (You can keep the printed copy with your working notes and coloured underlines/highlights in your own records as it may be helpful in the future, but there's usually no need to scan it and include it in your fact-checking folder—it shouldn't contain any pertinent information that isn't also included in the checking copy.)

By the time you have checked every fact in the story, nearly every word of text in your document should be covered by comments that either attribute statements to sources or flags them as unconfirmed, plus corrections or clarifications as necessary.

Topic-Specific Advice

Some types of stories require special considerations or more technical fact-checking. We will discuss some of the most common examples in this section and others in more detail later on. If you are unsure about how to approach a certain story, it may help to consult others (such as the head of research or fellow fact checkers).

Opinion and First-Person Pieces

Opinion pieces are not exempt from fact-checking. The best reporting, no matter how descriptive or narrative-driven, is based on facts—and those facts should be clearly presented in the reporter's annotated draft. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but in journalism, people should give reasons for their opinions, and the fact checker's job is to make sure that those reasons stand the test of accuracy.

Sometimes, in their annotated draft, the reporter will label a fact as being "on author." This term doesn't mean much on its own—people use it in a variety of contradictory ways. If the reporter simply means that they remember reading the fact in question somewhere but now they can't find the source, you can ignore it (you still need a source). If they mean that this fact is their opinion, you should ask about the facts on which their opinion is based. Essentially, if a fact can be attributed to an authoritative source, it shouldn't remain "on author."

However, some reporters use "on author" to mean that they consider themselves to be the source of the information. This often happens in the context of memoirs. Our rule (which is a special case of the Personal Principle) is that a fact can be "on author" in this sense only if it affects no one else, for example if the author is describing their own experience without naming any others or including any checkable external facts. Memoirs are discussed in greater detail in Chapter Six.

Off-the-record and background sources

Most publications ask reporters to always seek on-the-record interviews with named sources. But this is not always possible: some sources may provide information only on background, or they may ask for their names to be veiled for reasons of safety or privacy. If the reporter has come to an agreement with a source regarding their attribution status (ideally in consultation with other members of the editorial team), they should record the terms of that agreement and include it in their research package for the fact checker.

Different reporters and sources have different understandings of what on background or off the record mean, so those terms alone are not enough to establish the specifics of the relationship between the source and the publication. Can they be named? Quoted? Used for background information only? Or not cited at all?

Here is our list of attribution possibilities (inspired by the ones provided in The Chicago Guide to Fact-Checking, with some modifications):

On the record: Any information from the source can be published or aired and attributed to them.
On background: The information given by the source can be published, but the source can't be named.
- Veiled: The source is on background, and their quotes or information are not attributed to their full name (usually reporters use the person's first name only or their middle name instead, or sometimes they use a pseudonym). Alternatively, the reporter refers to the source's job or position instead of providing a name, the description of which must be agreed upon by the source and the reporter in advance.
- Not for attribution: The source is on background, and their quotes or information are not attributed to any name or personal description.
Off the record: The information given by the source can be neither used nor attributed to them. But if the journalist is able to confirm that information with other sources, it can be published (though still not attributed to the original source).

Usually, a source is accorded background (veiled or not for attribution) status only in cases where there is a clear and pressing need for anonymity, such as legitimate concern for the source's safety or the need to protect their personal privacy. (One special case is when you are conducting fact-checking interviews with additional people, such as subject-matter experts. In this case, the expert should understand that the fact-checking call is being conducted on background: they are helping you with your work, not being interviewed for the story itself.)

No matter what agreement the reporter made with the interviewed source, at least two people in the office should know the identity of the source so that the publication can assess the credibility of the information they have provided. Even if someone's identity cannot be published, it should not be withheld from the fact checker and head of research. It is the reporter's responsibility to communicate this policy to the source before the interview starts.

You should conduct fact-checking calls with everyone except off-the-record sources (to whom no information should be attributed, so there should be no reason for their names to appear in the reporter's research package in the first place). When fact-checking with a source on background, not for attribution, or whose name is veiled, make sure to lay out the terms of the attribution agreement again at the start and confirm that this is what they agreed on with the reporter. They may be nervous about speaking with a fact checker, so it is often helpful to remind them that the fact-checking call is as confidential as the original interview.

It's possible for the same person to have provided some information on the record and other information on background, so it is also important to indicate to the source which details are attached to their name and which are not.

The checker should confirm that any veiled source has chosen their own pseudonym or identification—ideally their first or middle name. When ensuring someone's anonymity—because of a publication ban or for reasons of safety or privacy—remember that simply removing their name from the story is rarely enough: the reporter should also remove identifying information of any sort, which can include their workplace, their age, their location, and a variety of other descriptors.

Any reader of the story should understand based on the text which sources are veiled and why. If you notice a source in the story who is mentioned only by first name or what seems to be a pseudonym without any explanation in the research package (and no in-text explanation for the reader), ask the handling editor and reporter about it before contacting the source for fact-checking.

Foreign-Language Reporting

Ideally, a story will be assigned to a fact checker who speaks the same language as the story's main sources. But it is sometimes the case that no such fact checker is available, which means the publication may need to hire an interpreter or translator to help with fact-checking. Typically, this will be arranged by the head of research, although in some cases the fact checker may also be responsible for finding their own translator.

We recommend working with an interpreter as follows:

Once you have found an interpreter, arrange a call with them to explain the fact-checking process, especially how to conduct fact-checking interviews. (You will essentially go briefly through every major point in the Verification and Investigation section of this chapter, though the interpreter won't be doing all the work involved.)
Create the interview documents and write questions for the sources in a story as usual. Then send the interview documents for any foreign-language source to the interpreter, who will translate the questions.
The interpreter will contact the sources directly and ask them the questions in a recorded interview. They will then translate the answers back into English and send you the interview recording, transcript, and translation, and you will use those translated answers as usual in your fact-checking. Include all records in your fact-checking folder.
Send any documentary source that is in a foreign language to the interpreter and tell them which fact you're hoping to confirm with it. Ask them to verify that the fact is corroborated by the source and to explain how and why it is (if it is). They should translate the relevant parts of the text and send that information back to you. Save the resulting documents and exchanges.

The translator should not suggest corrections or be involved in the fact-checking process more generally. They should report to the fact checker, who will compile the information in the fact-checking folder and make the appropriate corrections and comments in the checking copy.

Stories about Crime and the Law

While fact-checking, keep an eye out for legally sensitive issues (which may vary depending on your location and may require consulting a media lawyer).

The questions below provide a helpful baseline for identifying when special legal care may be required during fact-checking. They also underline the difficulty of fact-checking a story that touches on legal or criminal affairs—often, we need to fact-check the absence of something (absence of a verdict, absence of a publication ban, etc.), which can take substantial investigative work.

Stress Test for Legally Sensitive Stories

Is the article saying something about someone that could harm their reputation or cause them embarrassment?

If so, have you checked with them whether the statement is accurate and whether they have any response to it? If the statement is true and pertinent but they are reluctant to comment, have you confirmed it with other credible sources, and can you stand behind the statement's accuracy if challenged in court?
Is the story accusing anyone of illegal behaviour?

Always request a fact-checking interview with someone being accused of a crime. Even indirect accusations or accusations made of minor characters in a story are important to flag. The fact that the accusation takes up only one line of text (and doesn't name the person directly) won't prevent them from accusing you of libel if you don't have evidence for the accusation against them.
If the story refers to criminal offences, do you know whether the accused has been charged or convicted?

If they have not been convicted, the published story should not state or imply that they committed the offence—at least not without making it absolutely clear that this has not yet been determined in court.
Has any legal decision, such as a conviction, been appealed?

Someone can be convicted and later acquitted on appeal—and you should catch this during fact-checking if the reporter missed it. If you cannot access court documents yourself, you can always ask the lawyers involved in the case.
Did the author or editor provide all necessary legal documents to support statements made in the piece (such as statements of fact, sentencing documents, or court transcripts)?

Try to access these documents and read them carefully—they can include details you would otherwise miss.
If the word alleged is being used, is it modifying the right word in a sentence?

She was charged with the alleged crimes is very different from She was allegedly charged with the crimes, which is also different from She allegedly committed the crimes. Make sure you know which placement is right in the context of the story.
If the article is referring to a case being tried in court, is there a publication ban in place?

If the story identifies someone who is involved in a court case, make sure their identity is not protected by a publication ban. Some criminal court cases mandate that the accused or the complainant (or both) not be identified publicly. This is common for sexual-assault cases in Canada, for example. If a complainant's identity is bound by a court-ordered publication ban, that ban cannot be circumvented even if the complainant says they want their name published in the story.

Lifting a publication ban usually requires a court order, so it's best to consult a media lawyer before deciding whether the name of a complainant whose identity is protected by a ban can be published in a journalistic story. When faced with questions of anonymity, speak with the head of research and the handling editor—and suggest that the story be read by a lawyer.

Scientific Papers and Journal Articles

We discuss science fact-checking in further detail in Chapter Four. For now, we will just note that, in any domain, it is important to differentiate between articles that have been peer-reviewed and those that have not been. (You should be able to find this information in the "About Us" page of the journal the paper was published in.) The preference is always for peer-reviewed work, though of course a peer-reviewed article may still have errors.

Always read a scientific paper or journal article in full before citing it. If you cannot access a scholarly paper that you need for your research, feel free to email the study's author—academics are usually willing to share their work with journalists (and to explain it). You can also call a relevant expert who wasn't involved in the paper and ask them to help you understand and assess it.

Data and Statistics

Generally, there are three questions to ask about data: (1) what the raw data represents and how it was collected, (2) how that data was subsequently interpreted and analyzed (for example, by the authors of a scientific paper), and (3) how the reporter represented and used the data in their story.

Fact checkers should be aware of 1 and 2, which we discuss in detail in Chapter Four. But their main responsibility is to check 3: Is the reporter representing the data properly based on its source? Answering this question requires knowing how to accurately read statements about numbers, data, and statistics and how to identify common red flags. The following list of guidelines should help.

Guidelines for Reporting Accurately on Data and Statistics

Make sure you understand what the number refers to.

Language describing numbers should be as precise as possible to avoid ambiguity. For example, the statement There are 300,000 Ojibwe living in Canada and the United States can be understood in various ways depending on what the author meant by Ojibwe. Is the number based on First Nation membership, on reserve population, on survey self-identification, on language speakers, or on other data? You won't be able to check the statement's accuracy until you know how to make it more precise.
Use common sense.

This important piece of advice comes from Brooke Borel's The Chicago Guide to Fact-Checking. Asking yourself explicitly whether a number in a story makes sense can help you catch obvious (but common) errors. "Say you're fact-checking a story that cites distances that came from a report that was written in a European country," Borel writes. "Were the measurements correctly converted from kilometers to miles? Or say a story claims that 8 billion people have purchased the latest smartphone. As of 2016, the world population was around 7 billion. Did the writer mean 8 million?"
Make sure no crucial qualifying information is missing.

Missing contextual information can make statements about numbers misleading, even if the numbers themselves are correct. For example, when the Washington Post tweeted an article in October 2020 saying that one volunteer in an Oxford coronavirus vaccine trial had died, the number was accurate, but the statement implied something inaccurate: the volunteer had been in the control group, meaning their death could not have been related to the vaccine.
Make sure that approximations are appropriate.

An approximation can be accurate but misleading—and that's cause for a correction. For example, the statement Less than 10 percent of COVID-19 transmissions have taken place outdoors would technically have been true in May 2021, but the real proportion of COVID-19 transmissions that had taken place outdoors at that time was closer to 0.1 percent. Less than 10 percent is not a good approximation of 0.1 percent, so it should be corrected.
Make comparatives explicit and include the absolute numbers.

Statements that include comparatives such as more than are often imprecise, which can make them difficult to fact-check. Take this headline from the American Cancer Society: "More Black Women Die from Breast Cancer Than Any Other Cancer." The word more implies that there is a comparison here—but it's not clear at all what is being compared. The types of cancer? The races of cancer patients? The death rates?

Fact checkers should look for answers in the absolute numbers. Further reading in the American Cancer Society report tells us that, in the US, Black women are more likely to die from breast cancer than white women, even though white women are more likely to receive a diagnosis of breast cancer than Black women. What's more, lung cancer has long been the leading cause of cancer death across the US, but since the number of lung cancer deaths has been in steep decline in recent years, in 2019, breast cancer became the leading cause of cancer death for Black women in particular.

Providing this information in your fact-checking correction will allow the author and handling editor to rewrite the sentence in a way that emphasizes the fact they actually meant to communicate.
Check every instance of "percent" and "percentage point."

When discussing an increase or decrease in percentages, it can be easy to trip over language; always ask yourself whether the right terminology is being used.

A percent change refers to a number's relative change. For example, if I ate 50 chocolate bars last year, and I ate 70 this year, then my chocolate bar consumption increased 40 percent from year to year. A percentage-point change describes an absolute change in percentages. Say 10 out of the 50 chocolate bars I ate last year had nuts in them; that's 20 percent with nuts. This year, I still ate only 10 bars with nuts, but since I ate 70 bars in total, that's only about 14 percent with nuts. That means my nut-chocolate-bar consumption rate decreased from 20 to about 14 percent—so it decreased roughly 6 percentage points and 30 percent. (My annual absolute nutty chocolate-bar consumption, however, remained unchanged: I ate 10 a year.)
Properly differentiate between causation and correlation.

Correlation between two variables means that they have some kind of relationship—as one variable changes, so does the other. Causation is more precise: it means that one variable's changes cause the other to change. Not all correlation is causation, and you should make sure that the right vocabulary is being used (or implied) in a reporter's work.

One famous example of correlation draws on criminology research: strangely enough, whenever ice cream sales increase in a region, so does the violent crime rate—the two numbers are correlated. But that does not mean ice cream sales cause violent crime or vice versa. Rather, the correlation probably comes from the fact that, when it's warm out, people eat more ice cream, and they also spend more time outside, increasing the likelihood that they will encounter crime. This is an example of correlation that does not imply causation.
Pay particular attention to the use of statistical and technical language.

Scientists and statisticians may describe a result as "significant" or "non-significant," they may refer to its "p-value," or they may use other language with precise statistical meanings. The best way to check whether the reporter has conveyed such facts accurately is to refer to the original report where the language came from (most scientific papers will include helpful explanations of what the numbers mean)—or even to speak with one of the authors. Since p-values are particularly contentious in some scientific circles, Borel suggests that, "when in doubt, a fact-checker should call a statistician to help identify whether a paper is using the p-value honestly and correctly."

If any of these examples feels overwhelming, don't worry—what's most important is that you can identify potential problems, even if you can't solve them on your own. You can always ask colleagues for help sorting through numbers and statistical statements, or you can call an expert on background for advice.

After the Fact-Check

Fact-checking a story can take anywhere from one day to one month (and even longer for books and other longform works); it depends on a variety of factors, including the availability of sources for interviews and the complexity of the topic at hand.

Once you're satisfied that you've finished your work and you have a fact-checking folder and checking copy ready to go, you can let the head of research know that you're ready for a top read.

Fact-Check Input

Once the fact check is complete, the fact checker builds the checked copy. This is a version of the checking copy from which all source annotations have been removed—only corrections, clarifications, and other notes for the editor should remain. (This is because the handling editor does not need to know sourcing details for any fact that has been confirmed; they are concerned only with the details that require changes.)

The fact checker sends the checked copy to the handling editor and lets them know that they are ready for fact-check input. Typically, the editor will meet with the fact checker or speak with them over the phone, and the two will walk through every comment in the piece. This is the fact checker's opportunity to explain why certain changes need to be made and help the editor decide on accurate modifications to the text. The fact checker and the editor note what has been changed and how in order to record the changes in the fact-checking folder. We recommend doing so by creating a duplicate of the checked copy, called the post-input copy, where every change made by the editor is highlighted. Save the post-input copy in the fact-checking folder.

During input, the handling editor may decide that a suggested correction isn't necessary; if you agree, then that correction can be stetted—which essentially means that it has been overridden. In your input copy, make sure to note which changes are made and which are stetted. Speak up to editors if they override a correction that you believe is necessary. If there is a disagreement, make sure you've provided the editor with all of the information that has led you to believe a correction must be made. If you and the handling editor can't come to an agreement, the head of research will step in and make the final decision.

Once fact-check input is complete, the story is out of your hands: the handling editor will send the fact-checked version back to the reporter for the sake of transparency (and perhaps to ask for further modifications, if appropriate), and the story will enter production. If any changes are made to the story after that point, you may be called on to fact-check new details ( ideally nothing major at this late point in the editorial process). Make sure to include any additions in your fact-checking folder.

Fact-Check Read

You will see the story at least one more time after fact-check input, during your fact-check read. This is a chance for you to read the final draft of the story, after it has been copy-edited, formatted, proofread, and all the rest. You don't need to go through the entire fact-check again; just read the story to ensure that everything still seems accurate. Double-check anything new or suspicious, and input any changes with the handling editor. Keep a record of your work (including any new sources, corrections, and inputs or stets) in your fact-checking folder. Once your fact-check read is complete, your job is done, and your fact-checking folder is saved to the publication's archive. Congratulations! The story is ready for publication.

Variations and Adapting to Constraints

The fact-checking methodology outlined in this chapter sets a high standard, which not every publication can meet given limited resources and time. Fact-checking thoroughly can take a huge amount of time and energy, which makes it incompatible with the constraints of daily journalism and the small size of most newsrooms today. Daily newsrooms lack the time to conduct a thorough fact-check on every breaking story before publishing it. But this doesn't mean that no fact-checking is possible. Below, we highlight some of the compromises publications have made in order to allow for some kind of fact-checking process—even if it doesn't meet the ideal we've described.

Whatever version of editorial fact-checking a publication adopts, if the modifications made to the process introduce caveats to the reliability of the published content or affect how readers should relate to it—for example, if only certain stories or kinds of facts are ever checked, or if sources aren't given the opportunity to confirm their quotes—then these modifications should be disclosed publicly. This transparency can look different in different contexts. Sometimes, it makes sense to acknowledge that a story was fact-checked differently from the standard within the text of the story itself; other times, a publication can inform readers about its fact-checking methodology in its house policy or ethics statements. The important thing is to ensure that, when a story is described as "fact-checked," we all agree on what that means, and we know when and why exceptions to that definition have been made.

We have categorized the variations below by which ones we think should be disclosed to the reader if the publication is claiming to publish fact-checked journalism. All publications should have responsive and rigorous corrections policies and an open line of communication with sources and their audience.

Modifications that do not need to be disclosed:

No head of research or fact-checking department

Most publications that are not heavily invested in fact-checking do not have a separate fact-checking department or full-time head of research. That doesn't necessarily mean they don't work with fact checkers—but, when they do, there may be no one overseeing the fact checkers' work full-time, and the fact checkers may be freelancers hired to work on individual stories at a time. In these cases, the fact checker typically works directly with the handling editor on the story, and any complications are sorted out between them, without any outside review process. The more review there can be of fact checkers' work, the better—-especially for decisions about source accommodations and disagreements between the fact checker and the reporter or handling editor.
No review steps

A publication may decide to omit the review of the research package and/or the top read from their editorial process in order to save time and resources. If this is the case, we recommend that the fact checker reread their final check with an eye to those smaller details.
Fact-checking and editing at the same time

Some publications send a piece into fact-checking before the final draft is ready and continue to edit the story while fact-checking is underway. We advise against this as it creates more work for the fact checker: they have to keep track of what information has already been corroborated and what new information needs verification. This situation makes it much more likely that important details will be missed and errors will be published. If possible, the handling editor should wait for the most final version of a piece possible before sending it into fact-checking. If fact-checking needs to happen simultaneously, make sure to keep detailed records and ensure that every fact (including the most recent additions) has been checked before the story is published.

Modifications that should likely be disclosed to sources and the audience:

Using audio recordings and transcripts instead of calling people back

A publication with a tight schedule and few fact checkers on staff may rely on interview audio recordings and transcripts instead of calling people back. Doing this is of course better than not checking quotes at all, but it prevents the fact checker from updating sources' quotes with new information or accounting for missed context or nuance in the reporter's presentation of the quote. This practice is generally inadvisable: the fact checker's responsibility to call every interviewed source in a story is one of the most important parts of the job (as we emphasize in Chapter Eight.

If this is your publication's policy, make sure that interviewed sources know about it in advance so that they can consent to their interview being recorded and transcribed and to those transcriptions serving as an official record. You may still need to follow up if any clarificatory questions arise during your fact-checking that cannot be answered by reading through the transcript.
Giving some stories "light checks"

Sometimes, editors, publishers, or reporters ask for a story to be given a "light" check. This may mean that they want you to look only at the spellings of proper nouns and any dates or figures. Or it may mean that they want you to contact only sources who are seen as important. Standards vary, but many publications assign what they consider to be light checks for the sake of resource management.

For example, you might be asked to fact-check a memoir that has to be rushed for web publication without verifying the facts that involve the author's personal experience. Or, when fact-checking a book review under a tight deadline, you might trust that the author has understood the gist of the book without having to look at it yourself. (If fact-checking must be rushed, a preferable way to approach such a story would be to contact the book's author or publisher and confirm details about the book over the phone instead of reading it in full.) In these cases, you should be pragmatic: prioritize the most important and controversial details.

It is up to you to identify which kinds of "light check" modifications need to be disclosed; most of the time, they do.
Fact-checking only certain stories

To cut costs and save time, some publications fact-check only certain stories—typically those submitted by freelance reporters (instead of staff reporters), those published in print (instead of online), or those that are especially controversial or legally sensitive (in order to avoid lawsuits).

Here, transparency is key. If this policy is not disclosed to readers, then the audience will not be empowered to properly assess and compare the publication's stories, which are not all being held to the same factual standard.
The copy editor as fact checker

Some publications do not hire fact checkers but still claim to publish fact-checked journalism because they ask the copy editor to do the job. When fact-checking falls to the copy editor, it usually means that the fact check can't be done as thoroughly as it would be by someone whose role was dedicated to checking.

Ideally, the copy editor maintains some separation between copy-editing and fact-checking, and they call sources back (or at least listen to interview recordings) and conduct background research. But, when publications have this arrangement, the copy editor is often asked to check only the facts that fall under the copy editor's domains, such as name spellings and dates. In these cases, they can't really be called a fact checker according to the standards of this guide—and this should certainly be disclosed to readers and sources.
The reporter as fact checker—or no fact checker at all

Many publications do not have the resources to employ fact checkers, especially in the world of daily news, where there is no time for a second person to go through a reporter's work before it is published—though editors may do some checking of their own for legally or otherwise sensitive stories.

Though we do not recommend that the reporter fact-check their own work, since mistakes are likely to be missed, this is of course preferable to there being no fact-check at all. At the very least, reporters should be supported and given the resources to fact-check their own reporting before it is published. And any publication that does not support any kind of fact-checking process should not claim to publish fact-checked journalism.

What's Next?

Now you know what we consider to be the ideal methodology for fact-checking a piece of journalism. If you are interested in learning more about the standard practice, we advise reading the helpful guides by Cynthia Brouse (After the Fact: A Guide to Fact-Checking for Magazines and Other Media), Sarah Harrison Smith (The Fact Checker's Bible: A Guide to Getting It Right), and Brooke Borel (The Chicago Guide to Fact-Checking). The Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT also has a variety of helpful resources online for learning and teaching editorial fact-checking.

In the following chapters, we focus on topics that previously published fact-checking guides have not covered: the cases where ethical and other considerations make straightforward fact-checking counterproductive or impossible. These considerations won't come up for every fact check—it's unlikely that you will need to navigate trauma-informed interviewing practices or address systemic oppression while fact-checking a 250-word article on toothpaste. But the rest of this guide should help you think through complicated ethical issues if and when they do come up in your work; help you be more informed and capable of advocating for factual accuracy in future conversations with your editorial colleagues; and help you identify when standard practices need to be questioned or reconsidered.