Fact-Checking Policy

One requirement, ten desks

Nothing factual appears on THUNDER TIGER without having been matched to a source first, and the article shows readers which source that was. The requirement does not soften by subject. It governs a line about a border closure exactly as it governs a line about quarterly revenue, a clock speed, the number of participants in a trial, a transfer fee, an opening weekend, an entry rule, the build range covered by a safety notice, or the day a patch shipped.

Where verification fails, there are two honest options: leave the material out, or carry it flagged as unverified with whoever is asserting it named. Repetition is not a third option. A claim does not become a fact by appearing three times.

Sources are not equal, and the difference has consequences

How much weight a claim can carry in a story depends on where it came from. We work down a ladder.

• Documents and direct observation. The order as issued, the judgment, the regulatory filing, the raw dataset, the published paper, the governing body’s own result, the safety notice, the manufacturer’s specification, the release notes, the hardware sitting on the desk. This is where we start looking.
• Identified people with genuine standing. On the record, named, and described by role so readers can weigh what the words are worth.
• Communications staff and announcements. Solid proof of what an organisation wants said. No proof at all that it is true.
• Everything else. Accounts at second hand, postings, unattributable claims. These direct the reporting. They cannot be the reporting.

Where a source is uniquely positioned to know something and has nothing to gain by getting it wrong, that source alone will do. Anything disputed, or anything with consequences attached, requires either a document or a second source independent of the first. Two accounts derived from one announcement remain a single source no matter how differently they are worded.

Figures go through the document twice

Numbers are the most repeated and least examined element of any article, so each is verified against its origin and then examined again for arithmetic and for context.

Corporate figures are taken from the filing, the results statement or the recorded call, and where a statement and a filing conflict, the filing prevails. We establish which period is covered and whether the figure is reported or adjusted, and forward looking numbers are described as guidance rather than as performance. Share price movement comes from the exchange record with a time attached. Actions by governments are read in the instrument itself, the order, the statute or the statement as published, never in somebody’s summary of it. Vote counts come from the electoral authority and stay provisional until that authority says otherwise. Casualty numbers travel with their origin and the hour they were released, and numbers released by a combatant are described as such.

Two checks catch most of the rest. Any percentage is traced back to the base it was calculated from, which is where the majority of numerical errors hide. Any change is published with both the before and the after so readers can see the size of the move. Money stays in the currency it was quoted in, converted only where conversion genuinely helps and always with the date of the rate. Orders of magnitude get deliberate attention, because a misplaced factor of a thousand is the mistake that spreads furthest and survives longest. Anything startling is assumed wrong until confirmed, since startling numbers turn out to be errors far more often than chance would suggest.

What each desk reads

Science reporting works from the paper itself, with the status stated: peer reviewed, preprint or conference abstract. We give the number of participants, the design, the declared funding and the caveats the researchers wrote down themselves. Results in animals are described as results in animals, and an association is never written up as a cause. Announcements about research are compared against the research, because the two routinely diverge.

Sport, entertainment and gaming reporting works from the official record kept by the league, federation, studio or publisher. Standings, statistics and disciplinary outcomes come from there rather than from a live commentary. Contract terms count as confirmed only once a party to them confirms. Ticket sales, chart placings, streaming counts and units shifted carry their origin and the period they cover, and anything modelled is described as an estimate. Dates, ratings and platform availability come from the announcement made by whoever owns the product.

Travel reporting works from the operator’s or the authority’s live notice, with entry requirements read on the issuing government’s own page and the reading date recorded. Motoring reporting works from the safety notice as the regulator issued it, the maker’s specification and the relevant test results, with any consumption or range figure attributed to the cycle that produced it. Consumer and lifestyle claims are traced to whatever evidence exists and labelled as claims wherever that evidence is thin.

Words spoken and pictures taken

Quotations are verified against a recording, a transcript or a written statement. Hesitations and filler may be trimmed from speech. Sense may not, and any excision inside a quotation is shown. We never quote from recollection, and we never assemble a quotation out of somebody else’s report of what was said.

Before a photograph runs we establish its subject, its date, its location and its author. Pictures and clips racing around during an emergency, a demonstration, a fixture or a launch stay out of the site until their origin is nailed down. Where a picture is not of the thing under discussion, the caption states what it actually shows.

Saying so when we do not know

Articles frequently have to be written while part of the picture is still dark, and the honest move is to mark which part. Unconfirmed material is introduced as unconfirmed and attributed. A rumour is named as a rumour, and gets written about only when its circulation has become consequential in itself. Contested figures appear in both versions with both origins. A denial runs beside the allegation it answers. Vague formulations implying sources we do not have are not used here, and gesturing at unnamed people without characterising them is not attribution.

The read before the button

Every article is read by a second person before it goes live. That reader interrogates provenance: where did this claim come from, does the text show it, does the headline survive contact with the body, was anybody criticised given a real chance to answer, and which sentences were assumed rather than established. Serious allegations, named private individuals, live proceedings and anything describing a risk to health or safety trigger a further review. Anything that cannot survive the questions waits until it can.

Verification continues after publication

Readers, sources and subjects routinely find what we missed, and our corrections policy covers how those reports are dealt with and how quickly. Live stories are rechecked as material arrives, and a superseded detail is flagged as superseded rather than quietly replaced. The internal log of corrections is read for recurring patterns, and this page gets amended whenever a pattern shows up. If you can demonstrate that an article is wrong, send the link and the evidence. If you can show it is right but thin, that is equally welcome. The framework this policy sits inside is our editorial standards.