Fact-Checking Policy
The principle
Every factual claim Riverdale Standard publishes is checked against a source before publication, and the story tells the reader what that source is. This applies to a sentence about the Clayton County millage rate and to a sentence about a quarterly earnings figure, a transfer fee, a processor’s clock speed or a film’s opening weekend. The desks use different material; the requirement is the same. A claim we cannot check is either left out or labeled as unverified, and it is never promoted to fact by being repeated.
What counts as a source
Sources are ranked, and the rank decides how much weight a claim carries. At the top are primary documents and direct observation: the ordinance as adopted, the meeting we attended, the court filing, the regulatory submission, the published paper and its data, the official box score, the manufacturer’s specification sheet, the recall notice. Next are on-the-record statements from people in a position to know, identified by name and role. Below that are statements from spokespeople and press releases, which are useful for what an organization claims but are not evidence that the claim is true. At the bottom are secondhand accounts, social media posts and anonymous claims, which can point us to a story but cannot carry one on their own.
A single source is enough for a fact that the source is uniquely placed to know and has no reason to misstate. A contested or consequential claim needs a second, independent source or a document. Two sources repeating the same press release are one source.
The local desk
Local coverage is where checking is most concrete. Decisions of the county commission, the Riverdale City Council and neighboring councils, the school board and the water authority are checked against the agenda, the minutes when available, and the recording or our own notes from the meeting. Vote counts are checked against the roll call. Dollar figures come from the budget document or the resolution, not from a summary of it. Dates and deadlines come from the adopted text. Where a story depends on a record we do not yet have, we request it under Georgia’s Open Records Act and we wait, or we publish with the gap clearly stated.
Place names, road names and jurisdiction lines in the south metro are checked against official maps, because the boundaries between Riverdale, Jonesboro, Forest Park, Morrow, Lake City, Lovejoy and the unincorporated county are not obvious from a mailing address, and putting a property in the wrong city or the wrong school attendance zone is an error that matters to the people who live there. Crime and court information is checked against the incident report, the arrest record or the court docket, and the identification used is the one in the record.
The national and world desks
National and world stories are built from primary material wherever it exists. A business story is checked against the filing, the earnings release or the transcript of the call. A technology story is checked against the product documentation, the published benchmark or the company’s own statement, and a claim about performance is reported as the company’s claim until it is independently measured. A science story is checked against the paper, and we say whether the paper is peer reviewed, a preprint or a conference abstract, and what its sample size and limitations are. Sports results and statistics are checked against the official league record. Entertainment, travel, auto and gaming coverage is checked against the announcement, the schedule, the specification or the release itself.
Where a story relies on another organization’s reporting because primary material is not available to us, the story says so and credits the origin. We do not present a claim we have only read elsewhere as though we had verified it ourselves.
Numbers
Every number is checked twice: once against its source, and once for arithmetic and context. Percentages are checked against the base they are drawn from. A change is reported with both the old and the new figure, so that a reader can see the size of it. Currency figures are reported in the currency of the source, with a conversion only where it helps. A statistic that sounds remarkable is treated as probably wrong until confirmed, because remarkable numbers are disproportionately errors.
Quotations
Quotations are checked against the recording, the transcript or the written statement. Spoken quotes may have false starts and filler removed, but not meaning. Cuts inside a quotation are marked. A quote taken from a document is reproduced exactly. We do not quote from memory, and we do not reconstruct a quote from a second person’s account of it.
Images
A photograph is checked for what it shows, when and where it was taken, and who took it, before it is used. Images circulating on social media during a local incident are not published until the origin is confirmed, because old photographs of storm damage, fires and crashes resurface with every new event. Where an image is not of the event described, the caption says what it is.
Before publication
A second person reads every story before it goes out. Their job is to ask where each claim came from and whether the story shows it, whether the headline is supported, whether the people criticized were given a chance to respond, and whether anything has been assumed rather than checked. Stories carrying serious allegations, naming private individuals, or reporting on active legal matters get a further review. A story that cannot pass this stage waits.
After publication
Publication is not the end of checking. Readers, sources and subjects find things we missed, and the corrections policy explains how those reports are handled and how fast. Developing stories are re-checked as new material arrives, and where an earlier detail is superseded the update says so. The corrections log is reviewed for patterns, and rules on this page have been added because of what it showed.
What we ask of readers
If you know a story is wrong, tell us, with the link and the evidence, at support@riverdalestandard.com. If you know it is right but incomplete, tell us that too. A reader who attended a Riverdale council meeting we could not staff, or who has the document we are describing from a summary, is doing the same work we do, and we would rather hear from you before publication than after.
