Fact-Checking Policy
Every claim on this site is supposed to be traceable to something a reader could check without our help. This page describes the checking, in the order it happens. Last updated: August 2026.
What happens to a draft before it publishes
The writer owns their own facts first. Drafts arrive with the sources attached, either as links in the copy or as a note listing the document, the release, the dataset or the interview behind each claim. A draft without that goes back before anybody reads it for style.
Then a second person reads it against those sources instead of reading it for sense. The check is deliberately boring: name spellings, job titles, dates, places, numbers, unit and currency conversions, and whether the headline claims more than the copy supports. Where a piece accuses somebody, involves a legal proceeding, carries health advice or rests on a single source, that second reader is a section editor rather than another writer.
The piece also has to pass the cold start test from our about page, because it can be accurate and still fail a reader who arrived cold from another continent. On a moving story we check what we are publishing, not what we hope will firm up.
The primary source rule
We go to the thing itself: the court filing rather than the summary of it, the recall notice on the regulator’s site rather than the manufacturer’s statement about it, the government gazette rather than the news story about the announcement. A document in a language we do not read is translated properly before we quote it.
Secondhand reporting can be a starting point and is never an ending point. If another outlet has something we cannot stand up independently, the sentence names them, and we do not launder it into our own voice later. Aggregators are not sources at all: a number that has passed through three sites has usually shed the qualifier that made it true.
Links inside the story
A claim that rests on a document links to the document. Not a search page, not a homepage, not another article of ours that links onward. If a reader wants to check us, the route should be one click from the sentence.
Some sources cannot be linked: a paywalled filing, an interview, a document given on condition we do not publish it, a page that has already gone. The article then describes it precisely enough to be found, says why there is no link, and quotes enough of a page likely to move that it can be checked later.
Pictures and video
Before an image is used it gets a reverse image search unless it came from a wire or a known official source, a look at whatever date and location metadata survived the upload, and a check on whether the scene matches the weather and the season. Old footage relabeled as new is what we catch most, and it arrives during fast-moving stories.
Where we cannot establish where a picture came from, we do not use it, however good it looks. Handouts from a company or a tourism board are credited as handouts, and illustrations are captioned so nobody takes them for the event. When the caption carries the claim, it is checked as hard as the copy.
Numbers, studies and press releases
A study is read before it is written about, and the press release about it does not count as reading it. We check the sample size, what was measured, whether the finding was the point of the research or incidental, whether it is peer reviewed or a preprint, and who paid for it. A conclusion the paper hedges does not become a flat statement in our headline.
With official statistics we look at who produced the figure, what period it covers and what it leaves out. Comparing two countries’ numbers is where international coverage quietly goes wrong, because two agencies rarely count the same thing the same way. When official sources disagree about the same event, we publish both figures and say plainly that they do not agree.
Social posts and material readers send us
A social post is a claim by whoever posted it and nothing more. Before we cite one we establish that the account belongs to who it says it does, that this is the original rather than a screenshot of a screenshot, and that the person was placed to know. Where we can, we ask them directly.
Nothing runs on the strength of one anonymous account. That rule is our own scar. A single social account was the basis of a claim we published in our first months, it cost us a same-day correction, and the rule has held since. Material arriving in our inbox is a tip to be verified rather than evidence.
The same standard for everybody
A claim is checked on what it is, not on who made it. A government statement, a company’s own numbers, an opposition politician’s allegation and a campaign group’s report get the same treatment, which means asking for the underlying document every time. Being the official source does not make a figure true.
We do not run a rating scale, and we take no position on who should win an election anywhere. What we do is refuse to print a contested number as settled. Where a claim cannot be established either way, the article says so and says what would settle it. Our editorial standards cover the independence side.
When the check fails after publication
Verification is not perfect, and pretending otherwise is how outlets end up defending things they should be fixing. Once something we checked turns out to be wrong, it stops being a fact-checking matter and becomes a correction. The article is fixed where it stands, with a dated note, and our corrections policy sets out who signs that off.
We also work out how it got through. The answer is usually a source we trusted further than the evidence supported, or a claim that crossed a handover and was never re-checked because everybody assumed somebody else had. That is a process failure rather than bad luck, so the fix goes into the process. We work to the principles behind the International Fact-Checking Network’s code: non-partisanship, transparency about sources and funding, and an open corrections policy, though we claim no signatory status. If a claim here does not stand up, write to support@worldhab.com with the link and the sentence.
