Sourcing standards

The Lede is a research desk before it's an algorithm. Like any desk, it holds a standard for the reporting it builds a brief on, and it tells you when that standard is doing work.

What earns a straight brief

A good brief needs source material that reports: it does the work of finding things out, separates what's confirmed from what isn't, and corrects the record when it gets something wrong. When a story rests on reporting that clears that bar, we brief it straight and stay out of the way.

When we reach past the source

Sometimes the strongest available account of a story sits with a source we don't think clears that bar. When that happens, The Lede looks for a more solid account of the same events and builds the brief from that instead. It tells you, in the brief, that it did. You see when it happened; nothing is swapped behind your back.

When you ask us to go deeper

Ask The Lede to dig deeper on a story and it goes looking for what the original piece left out. Reaching past the source article, it leans deliberately outward: it favors international reporting and peer-reviewed or primary research over more of the same domestic commentary. How the rest of the world covered a story, and what the underlying study actually found, usually tells you more than another take from the same vantage point.

Where we stand

This is editorial judgment, not a neutrality pose. Every desk decides what's worth putting in front of a reader, and so do we; reasonable people will disagree with where we draw the line, and that's fair. What we won't do is pretend there's no line. We'd rather be plain that we hold one, and own it, than dress a point of view up as no point of view at all.

Questions? support@theledeapp.com