Fact-first, on the hard stories

Some of the most important stories in Black America, including policing, voting law, the economy, and the courts, are politically charged. On those stories, we report verifiable facts and keep opinion out of the news copy.

That means:

  • What happened, sourced to the record — documents, data, on-the-record statements.
  • What each side claims, attributed clearly, without us putting a thumb on the scale.
  • No loaded language. No adjectives doing an argument’s work. No conclusions we haven’t shown you the evidence for.
  • If a sentence cannot be traced to a fact, we do not publish it.

We choose what to cover and how to organize it. We still keep our opinions out of reporting and show the sources behind the work.

Two groups, one clear standard

Every piece falls into one of two groups before work starts. The group sets the rules.

Hard news. Politics, policing, courts, voting, economy, and other consequential stories. Facts only, no opinion, every claim sourced.

Culture, technology, and lifestyle. These pieces can have more voice. Opinion is allowed only when clearly labeled. Facts are still checked.

If we are unsure which group a story belongs in, we treat it as hard news.

Reported, Commentary, Opinion — always labeled

You should never have to guess whether you’re reading reported news or someone’s take. Every article on this site carries a persistent label indicating its content type:

  • Reported — sourced news, held to the standard above.
  • Commentary — analysis and argument. A point of view, informed by reporting.
  • Opinion — the writer’s own view, marked as such.

The label appears on every article page and every card that surfaces the piece elsewhere on the site.

Sourcing

Every reported fact traces to a real source: a document, a dataset, an on-the-record statement, a filed record, or a named interview. For any critical fact, a person on our staff has opened the primary source directly — not a summary of it.

We show our sources. Every article surfaces a sources panel listing the documents, filings, datasets, and on-the-record interviews behind it. Where we can link to a primary source, we do.

Both parties, one standard

Our stance is independent, both parties scrutinized on the same terms. Operationally:

  • The same evidentiary bar applies to every party and figure. If a claim about one side needs a document, so does the claim about the other.
  • Same verbs, same weight, same skepticism regardless of who a claim helps or hurts.
  • When we criticize an action, we criticize the action, sourced — not the person, not the party as a category.

Anonymous and off-the-record sources

We prefer named sources. When we grant anonymity, it’s because a source faces real professional or legal risk for speaking, and their information can’t be reported any other way. In those cases we describe why the source was granted anonymity, and we require corroboration before we publish.

Off-the-record conversations don’t appear in our reporting except as background that leads us to on-the-record verification.

Sensitive stories

Some stories require additional care and human judgment throughout. Any piece involving a minor, a crime victim or their family, ongoing litigation where allegations are described, potential defamation of a private individual, or a named person’s health, criminal history, immigration status, or sexuality is handled directly by an editor. Artificial intelligence is not used to draft any part of these pieces. See our AI Use Policy for more.

The pre-publish checklist

No piece publishes until an editor can answer yes to all of these:

  • Every fact is traced to a real, human-checked source.
  • Every quote is real — pulled from a recording, transcript, or document a human has seen.
  • A person on staff has opened the primary source for any critical fact.
  • No unsupported claims.
  • On hard-news pieces, opinion and loaded language have been removed.
  • Labels are correct — reported news reads as news; commentary and opinion are marked.
  • One editor is named on the piece.

If any answer is no, the piece doesn’t run. “We were moving fast” is not an exception.

Corrections and AI

When we get something wrong, we fix it in the open. See our Corrections Policy.

We use AI to help our small team cover more ground, under strict rules. A human is responsible for everything we publish. See our AI Use Policy.