Fact-Checking
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A Guide to OCCRP’s Fact-Checking Process
OCCRP has a rigorous fact-checking process to ensure that all our stories are as accurate and well-sourced as possible.
This is one of the main ways we distinguish ourselves from our competitors, safeguard our reputation, and prevent legal threats.
Though fact-checking can be difficult and laborious, it represents OCCRP’s commitment to making your story absolutely ironclad.
We’ve had very few serious errors in our history — your informed participation will help keep it that way. So please read below for guidance on how to make the process as fast and painless as possible:
An overview of the fact-checking workflow
Tips for how to prepare during reporting
The standards of evidence
How to footnote successfully
The Fact Checking Workflow
Typically, fact checking takes place after editing, when the text of a story is essentially final. Any edits made afterwards should only reflect changes that are necessary as a result of fact checking or to fix minor cosmetic and layout issues.
Here are the steps:
The story is reported and written. During the reporting process, the authors must save all proofs (documents, screenshots, interview transcripts) that will later be used for fact checking.
The story is edited.
The author(s) add footnotes indicating proof to every sentence in the story.
The OCCRP editor responsible for the story contacts Birgit Brauer, the head of our fact checking team, and asks her to assign a fact checker.
The fact checker goes through the story, marking as “complete” everything that is proven and leaving comments for editors and questions for the author(s) where there are issues.
The author(s) should pay attention to the fact checker’s requests and add more proofs or clarifications as soon as possible when asked.
Sometimes, the fact-checker may ask for a call with the author(s) to go over more complicated proofs.
Once the fact checker informs the OCCRP editor that they’re done, a senior editor — not the same one who worked on the story — will “clear” the fact checking by:
Removing footnotes;
Making editorial decisions about what to do in cases of questionable proofs or if something needs to be reworded;
Resolving remaining issues, sometimes with the help of the fact checker and author;
Getting approval from Drew Sullivan on any remaining questionable parts.
The text is now essentially final, and the story can be translated, laid out, and published. Any significant changes or additions after this point must be fact checked again.
IMPORTANT: Once fact checking begins, the author(s) should not interfere in any way — they must not change a single word. The only thing they should do is respond to the fact checker’s questions or comments, or add new proofs when asked.
How to Prepare for Fact Checking During Reporting
It’s important to understand that the fact checker will check every single factual claim in your story, not just the central findings.
That’s why, during the reporting process, it’s not enough to save the damning contract or company record that proves the central wrongdoing. You have to save proof for everything that underpins any claim you will make. In most cases, your memory will not be sufficient — the fact checker will want to see documentation.
Ideally, all interviews should be recorded and a transcript made available to fact checkers. If the original interview was in a language other than issue, both the original and an English translation, at least of the relevant parts, should be made available.
If this is impossible for some reason, fact checkers can accept reporters’ notes, if they are detailed and written down immediately after the interview. In such cases, verbatim quotes usually can’t be used.
Standards of Evidence
Especially for the most important claims in your story, you must have original documented proof: company records showing ownership, bank details showing a wire transfer, an email showing an important conversation, etc.
Things you heard verbally — “a source told me” — can count as additional evidence, but can’t be the primary evidence of an important claim.
Referring to other media reports doesn’t count. For example, if the New York Times says that a company was founded in 2018, you can’t use the New York Times story as proof: You need original company records. Otherwise your story will need to have a phrase like this: “As reported by the New York Times, the company was founded in 2018.”
One exception is general or background/historical knowledge, like “Donald Trump was inaugurated president on January 20, 2017.” In this case, linking to a reputable news site (or several) is sufficient. Another exception is previous, fact-checked OCCRP investigations (not daily stories or features). If it has been fact-checked once and published, it can be used as proof again.
Here are a few examples:
How to Footnote Successfully
One of the most common complaints about the fact checking process is that it takes too long. But in many cases, the authors are responsible for the delay because they’re not helping fact checkers see and understand the proof quickly. If you make your footnotes informative and specific, the fact checker can move quite quickly.
Consider this paragraph about a well-connected Italian businessman named Vincenzo Trani:
The first sentence is a “signpost” that helps the reader understand the point the paragraph is making. It’s a summary of the following sentences, so your footnote can simply explain that the proof will follow.
The next sentence makes three claims, so it has three footnotes. Here are examples of good and bad versions of those footnotes:
In the first example, the “bad footnote” is an unexplained YouTube link. To check it, the fact checker would have to follow the link, figure out what it is (an interview Trani gave on a Russian TV program), and then watch the entire hour-long video and listen for a mention of Berlusconi.
The “good footnote” explains what’s being linked to and indicates exactly where the fact checker should watch. This will take 30 seconds to check.
The same principle applies in the second and third examples: Your footnotes should identify exactly what you’re linking to and tell the fact checker exactly where to look.
When you link to a document instead of an internet link, as in the third example, the file (in this case a PDF) should be already shared with the fact checker. The easiest way to do this is to put all your documents into one folder that you share. (At OCCRP we tend to use Google Drive.) For ease of reference, you can number them like this:
…but this is optional. What’s more important is that every proof has a clear label.
In the example above, the proof is numbered but there’s also a link directly to the file, so the fact checker doesn’t even need to open the folder and find the right file. Again, the intent is to make everything as easy as possible.
In some cases, explanations to fact checkers are more elaborate than a simple link to one document. You have to “make an argument” in the footnote. This takes a bit more time to write out, but it’s much better than adding a few unexplained links. Otherwise you’ll have to set up an entire phone call just to prove one sentence.
Here’s an example. Consider this seemingly simple claim about a non-profit organization:
This kind of claim can be the trickiest thing to prove, because it’s hard to find a single, definitive source.
Here’s a footnote that makes the argument successfully:
The conversational tone clearly explains to the fact checker what proof is being provided. Also note that a number of different, independent sources are used to make the proof convincing: Four separate press releases from organizations, an interview, a Google search pointing to many more results, and a video.
In summary, here are the best practices for adding successful footnotes to a story:
Every sentence that makes a claim must be footnoted.
Footnotes should explain what’s being linked to and tell the fact checker exactly where to look.
Files the fact checker needs to read should be in a shared folder and, ideally, linked to directly.
Make the footnotes conversational in tone — you are not just dropping links, you are making an argument that should make further communication with the fact checker unnecessary.
If you want to share this guide to the fact-checking process with external partners, here's a Google Doc version.
Here is a story with excellent footnotes. This complex story was checked very quickly because the footnotes were so clear!