How our news is made

• A primary document, or two independent news organizations. A primary document is the thing itself, published by a government: a bill, a court filing, an agency’s own release, official data. The check counts sources by the organization that publishes them, so two articles from one outlet count once, and our own pages never count.
• No single-source stories.A story only one outlet has reported is held back until a second source or a document confirms it. A smaller detail, such as a quote or a local reaction, may come from one news organization, and the story then says which one (“told WPSD”).
• Nothing invented. No quote, figure, name or date appears unless a listed source contains it, and quotes say where they first appeared.
• Every sentence shows its source. Each sentence of a story ends with a small number linking to the source it rests on, in the list below the story.
• Quotes and figures checked by machine. Before a story is published, a program fetches its sources and confirms that every quotation appears word for word, and every number appears, in a source the sentence cites. A story that fails is not published.
• Current information. Each story is checked against the newest source available, and says so when facts have changed.
• A person reviews any accusation against a private individual. A story saying a private person did something wrong is never published automatically, even when charges or court filings back it up.

In order of preference: primary documents from the Illinois General Assembly, the Governor’s office, state agencies, courts and local governments; wire services and public media; and established Illinois newspapers and broadcasters with named reporters and a corrections policy.

We do not use anonymous social media posts, content farms, or sites that look like local newspapers but have no reporters, bylines or corrections policy.

Stories are written fresh, not copied or closely paraphrased from the sources. When another outlet broke a story, we say so by name and link to it.

The newsroom follows the same rule as the rest of the site: report what happened and what the record shows, and leave the verdict to the reader. Political stories describe each side’s position in its own terms, with equal treatment. There are no endorsements, rankings or scores.

When a published story is wrong, it is fixed and a dated correction is added to the story saying what changed. A published story is never edited without a note, and every version of every story is kept in the site’s change history. A story that has to come down keeps its page, which says when and why it was withdrawn.

An AI system can misread a source, miss context a reporter would know, or get a detail wrong even when its sources are right. These rules reduce that risk; they do not remove it. That is why every story lists its sources: check anything that matters to you against them.

Voting records, bills and legislators elsewhere on the site come directly from the official record, not from AI. See About & sources.