I’m a detail-oriented writer, when it comes to fact-checking processes processes. I want to make sure that every sentence is empirically correct and that every statement I make, and every statement made by a source, is correct.

Frequently we, as reporters, rely on outside testimony: arguments made by sources, presented as their arguments and not ours; biographical details or other information that we can’t get ourselves;

I’ve long thought about philosophies of verification.

At the Baltimore City Paper, I for the first time was tasked with fact-checking others’ work. As someone in an editor’s seat at a college paper, this was an alien task. At The Retriever, we edited for clarity and rhetoric. That was about it. At City Paper, I was calling and checking every single factual claim made.

The AC/CQ process used at The Missourian has been informative in this regard. It’s important that the phrasing of a quote or attributed idea match what someone intended. Too often journalists hides behind an understanding of what sources say as “up to them”  — that we as reporters aren’t responsible for ensuring that what a source says is correct, for separating wheat from chaff. That’s clearly incorrect, as the Mizzou j-school teaches. The AC/CQ process does an OK job of checking this.

So what do I do when something falls in the middle?

What do I do when consulting a scientist or lawyer to explain something complex, and find myself unable to determine if their telling is fairly framed? What do I do when asking a source about climate change, and they somehow frame the information in a manner that underplays certain findings or overplays others?

What do I do when someone provides information about their personal background that, unknown to me, distorts the reality of a given situation in their past? What if they were born in Hallsville, not Columbia, and that somehow makes for an important distinction in the future?

What do I do when a politician refers to a sewer issue as a serious problem that affects every business owner he knows, but I lack the institutional knowledge to interrupt and check his understanding? Do I publish his statement and make it clear that he’s speaking for himself, not me? Do I check with business owners as to whether he’s correct, or in some other way investigate his statement? Do I ask him for his evidence, or do I accept it as a campaign statement and focus my time on other important issues?

These questions, I suspect, would have different answers depending on the editor or publication.

If we publish inappropriately-framed info, that’s on our head when people find out, not just the source. Yet an AC/CQ process will never be able to adequately account for these things. As a result, in situations of higher stakes, we do a deeper dig on what is or isn’t correct, because it’s our head if we’re wrong. Yet that implies some sort of acceptance of incorrect reporting for less-important stories.