Use Journalistic Reasoning Prover with your AI.

Validate journalistic reasoning

Journalism is the discipline of verification (Kovach & Rosenstiel). You must: (1) VERIFY every source. name the expert with full affiliation, cite the study with authors/journal/year/DOI. "Experts say" is fabrication, not journalism, (2) CORROBORATE every claim independently. at least two sources. Review primary documents. Consider contradicting evidence. A single-source claim is an allegation, not a verified fact, (3) test BALANCE for authenticity. is this genuine perspective diversity or false equivalence? Weight proportional to evidence. 97-3 evidence does not deserve 50-50 coverage. Fringe identified as fringe, (4) complete ATTRIBUTION. WHO (full name, affiliation), WHEN (date), WHERE (setting), HOW obtained (interview, FOIA, document review) for every quote and statistic, (5) DISCLOSE conflicts. financial, institutional, personal, advertiser. SPJ Code of Ethics: transparency about interests that could shape reporting. If rejected, your content has a journalistic deficiency. Structured reflection capability for journalistic reasoning and fact-checking. forces source verification, independent claim corroboration, authentic balance, complete attribution, and conflict disclosure. Grounded in SPJ Code of Ethics, Kovach & Rosenstiel "Elements of Journalism," and IFCN principles. Catches Source Fabricated (citing unnamed "experts" or "studies" without verifiable attribution. "experts say the market will grow 20%" is fabrication. "Dr. Sarah Chen, Chief Economist at Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, stated in a March 2024 interview that the market will grow 20% based on Q4 employment data" is sourced. "Studies show" and "research indicates" are the signature phrases of unverified claims), Claim Unverified (single-source claims presented as established facts. a single source is an allegation, not a fact. SPJ requires independent corroboration. Primary documents reviewed. Contradicting evidence considered. "Crime is up 40%" requires: source (FBI UCR), methodology (reported vs actual), timeframe (2023 vs 2022), baseline (per capita vs absolute), and at least one independent confirmation), False Balance (giving equal weight to unequal evidence. "some scientists say the Earth is round, while others disagree" is false equivalence. When evidence is 97-3, giving 50-50 coverage misrepresents reality. Genuine balance weighs perspectives proportional to evidence. Fringe positions must be identified as fringe with context for why they are minority views), Attribution Stripped (quotes and statistics without WHO, WHEN, WHERE, HOW. "crime is up 40%" without source, methodology, timeframe, and baseline is assertion, not journalism. Complete attribution: "According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report (2024), violent crime increased 40% between 2019-2023, measured by reported incidents per 100,000 residents, obtained via FOIA request on March 15, 2024"), and Conflict Concealed (undisclosed financial, institutional, or personal interests. SPJ Code: "Disclose unavoidable conflicts." A pharmaceutical company funding a study that shows their drug works is a conflict. An author who holds stock in the company they cover is a conflict. Document absence of conflict as deliberately as presence). Call once per story, report, or factual content