Sourcing standards

The short version

Every fact in a story has either one primary document or two independent sources behind it, and the story names them. If we cannot source a fact, it does not run.

How a story gets made

1. We read the document. Agendas, minutes, notices, state letters, budget bills and court records, from the official site that posts them. We keep a dated copy of each one.
2. We write down every claim. Each name, date, dollar figure and quote goes into a claim list with the page it came from.
3. A second check confirms each claim. It works from the documents alone, recomputes every number and checks the spelling of every name.
4. An editor approves it. Nothing is published until Chuck Vieira says yes.
5. We check again. When minutes are amended or a vote happens, we update the story and say so.

How we use AI

We use AI software to read public documents and draft stories; every fact is checked against the documents and the editor approves every story before it runs.

What counts as a source

• Primary document: an agenda, minutes, an official release on a government site, a court docket, a filing. One is enough for the facts it states, and the story says which document.
• An official's statement on the record: from a release or a recording, labeled as their words.
• Another newsroom's reporting: linked and credited, never the only basis for a fact.

One fact of our own

Every story adds at least one thing you will not find in the press release: a figure we computed, a detail from page four of the minutes, a cross-check against another document.

The other side

When a story involves a dispute, we quote each side's own documents. If we have not heard from one side, the story says so in plain words.

Words we choose

We write charges as charges and use people's names and titles as their own documents give them. We do not use slurs or loaded labels, even when an agency's release does.

Conflicts of interest

Our owner runs other local businesses. A story that touches one of them, or a client or partner of one, either discloses the connection in the story or does not run.

What we never do

• Copy another outlet's words, photos or video.
• Run a press release as news without labeling it.
• Publish an anonymous tip as fact.
• Invent a reporter or a byline.
• Identify minors, or victims of sexual assault or domestic violence.