Home / Methodology
Methodology is always visible. Process is part of the story.
Every case study in this portfolio publishes with its sourcing tree, its editorial decisions, and its ethical decision log. This page documents the standards behind them — the same standards fellowship committees reviewed in the 2024–25 cycles.
01
Sourcing trees
Every investigation carries a parcel-by-parcel appendix: which claim came from which document, which interview, which dataset. Readers can trace any assertion back to its origin. Anything that cannot be traced is labeled as unattributed — or cut.
02
Dual verification
Casualty figures, financial totals, and contested facts require two independent sources or two independent records. Data analyses are reviewed blind by an outside statistician and reproduced by the newsroom before publication.
03
Right of reply, twice
Every implicated party receives detailed written questions — twice, with the full findings attached the second time. Responses run in full alongside the piece. Silence is documented with dates, not implied with adjectives.
04
Source protection
Communications with at-risk sources run over encrypted channels with a documented protocol. Operational details that could endanger a subject or a contact are reviewed by counsel and withheld — and the withholding itself is disclosed to readers.
05
Corrections on the record
Errors are corrected with the original lines struck through and preserved, never silently replaced. The transmission log — what was filed, when, and what was held — stays part of the published file.
06
Impact documentation
Policy changes, frozen accounts, revised rules, and syllabus adoptions are tracked and cited — only when documented. This portfolio claims $180M+ in policy-linked financial impact because the paper trail supports it, line by line.
“I owe the story less than I owe the person who trusted me with it, and every reader who deserves to know what was done in their name.”— On sourcing ethics, Northfield Journalism Review, 2023
Propose a collaboration
Bring a project that needs this standard.
Commissioning editors, documentary producers, curriculum builders, press-freedom researchers — responses within 48 hours.