Fact-Checking Policy
What we mean by checking a fact
Checking a fact is not reading it twice. It is asking where a claim comes from, whether the source is in a position to know, and whether an independent record supports it. At TL TALK RADIO a claim stays off the page until it has been through that, and the standard rises with the stakes: a passing detail and a headline accusation are not held to the same bar, and neither should they be.
This page describes how we do that. It sits alongside our editorial standards, which set out the wider ethics of the newsroom, and our corrections policy, which is what happens on the days our checking was not good enough.
Primary sources first
We work back toward the origin of a claim rather than passing along someone else’s version of it. That means the ruling rather than the press release about the ruling, the filing rather than the tweet summarising it, the full study rather than the university’s write-up, and the transcript rather than the clip. Where a primary source exists and we can link to it, we do, so you can check the ground for yourself.
Secondary reporting has its place. If another outlet has a story we cannot independently confirm, we can report that they reported it, attributed clearly, but we do not restate their claim as our own established fact. There is a real difference between “the record shows” and “another outlet says,” and we keep it visible to the reader.
How we test a claim
The checks vary with the claim, but the questions are consistent:
- Who is the source, and are they actually in a position to know this, or simply willing to say it?
- Is there a document or a record we can point to, and does it say what the claim says it says?
- On a high-stakes claim, is there a second independent line of support, rather than two outlets quoting the same single origin?
- Are numbers, dates, names, titles and places right, and do the figures actually add up?
- Has anyone facing a serious allegation been given a fair chance to respond, and is their response reflected honestly?
- What is the strongest case against this claim, and does it survive that case?
Quotes are checked against what was actually said, in the context in which it was said, because a quote sharpened by trimming is a small lie. Statistics are checked against their source and, where we can, put in the context that makes them mean something rather than left to shock.
Breaking news, where certainty runs behind events
The hardest checking happens when a story is still unfolding and the pressure to publish is highest. Our rule in those hours is to report what we can confirm, attribute what we cannot, and say plainly what we do not yet know. We would rather a story read “figures are unconfirmed and rising” than commit to a number that a later bulletin will contradict. Early casualty counts, unverified footage and claims from interested parties get the most caution, not the least, because those are exactly the claims a fast story tends to get wrong.
Tools, images and generative software
Software helps us search, transcribe and sift, and generative tools may assist with research or a first draft. None of that changes who is responsible. A human editor verifies every published claim against a real source, because a language model is a confident guesser, not a witness, and it does not know what happened today. Images and video are checked for origin and context before we trust them, and where something is a file picture, an illustration or unverified user footage, we label it as such rather than let it pose as our own confirmed reporting.
When we are not sure, and when we are wrong
Certainty is not always available on deadline, and pretending otherwise is how errors get printed. When we cannot confirm something that matters, we say so in the story rather than paper over the gap, and we keep reporting until we can. When a check fails after publication and something is wrong, we do not argue, we fix it, on the record, the way our corrections policy describes. If you can show us a claim on this site is unsupported, write to support@tltalkradio.org with the link and the evidence. A reader who checks our work is doing part of our job with us, and we are grateful for it.
Last updated: August 2026
