Fact-Checking
What we verify before publication, and the level of proof each kind of claim has to clear.
LAST UPDATED · 27 JULY 2026
The standard
A claim gets published when we can point to where it came from. That is the whole test, and it applies whether the claim is dramatic or dull.
We are a small newsroom and cannot independently verify everything. So we are explicit about the difference between what we have checked, what we are attributing to someone else, and what we are inferring.
How we treat each kind of claim
Numbers
Figures are traced to a primary source: a filing, a dataset, a published study, an official release. If we cannot reach the primary source, we attribute the number to whoever reported it and say so. We do not round a contested figure into a confident one.
Quotations
Direct quotes come from a recording, a transcript, a written statement or a named interview. We do not reconstruct quotes from memory or paraphrase into quotation marks.
Claims about named companies
Assertions about what a specific company did, decided or intends require documentary support or on-the-record confirmation. Where a report is circulating that we have not confirmed, we describe it as a report and name who reported it.
Analysis and forecasts
Our analysis is our reasoning, not a fact, and is written so a reader can tell the difference. We show the assumptions. A forecast that cannot be wrong is not a forecast.
Hypothetical examples
We often illustrate a mechanism with an invented example: a four-hundred-person insurer, a mid-market distributor. These are always labelled as hypothetical and never dressed up as a real case study.
Where AI fits
AI tools assist our research and drafting, as described in oureditorial policy. They are not a source. No factual claim enters an article on the authority of a model: either the underlying evidence is checked by a person, or the claim does not run.
When we are unsure
We say so. We could not confirm is a legitimate sentence and we would rather print it than manufacture certainty. If a story only works when a detail is stated more firmly than the evidence allows, the story is not ready.
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