How we verify

Every story page carries a panel called "How this checks out." This page explains the words in it.

Confirmed

An official or primary voice is on the record, or enough independent outlets have reported the story separately that treating it as fact is sound. Independent means actually independent: two outlets owned by the same company count once, and a wire story reprinted in ten places counts once.

Developing

A few outlets have it, but fewer than our bar for confirmed. The story is probably true and we say plainly how many voices are behind it.

Single source

Exactly one outlet has this so far. We tell you that, and the story stays labeled until someone else reports it or someone involved confirms it.

We compute an internal score behind these labels, weighing how many independent voices a story has, who they are, and whether anyone involved has spoken. We publish the label and the evidence rather than the number, because a number invites false precision. The evidence is always on the page: every outlet, linked to what it published, with dates.