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Check the story’s claims, not the apparent identity or writing style of its author. Break the article into verifiable facts, trace important claims to original evidence, and seek independent corroboration. A byline, AI disclosure, or detector result cannot establish whether a story is accurate.
1. Identify who is accountable for the story
Note the publication, byline, publication date, and any update time. Check the outlet’s editorial standards and corrections policy, and see whether the page explains who is responsible for its reporting. The Journalism Trust Initiative standard calls for automatically generated news to be clearly indicated and for author identification or records to be available when a query arises: Journalism Trust Initiative.
A missing or unclear AI label is a reason to ask how the story was produced—not proof that AI wrote it. Likewise, knowing who wrote or published a story does not establish that its claims are true.
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Separate verifiable statements from opinion, interpretation, and prediction. Focus first on claims that could change the story’s main conclusion:
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- What happened, and when and where?
- Who was involved, and what did they do or say?
- How many people or how much money was involved?
- What evidence supports a claimed cause or explanation?
For each important claim, write down what evidence could support or weaken it. Verification varies with the fact being checked; a claim about a public vote may require an official record, while a quote may require a recording or transcript. The Verification Handbook puts the central question this way: “The question at the heart of verification is: ‘How do you know that?’”
3. Trace claims to their original evidence
Follow the story’s links and citations beyond summaries that repeat one another. Look for the underlying report, court filing, public dataset, research paper, recording, official statement, or a person with direct knowledge. Ask of each source: how does it know this, and is there another way to confirm it?
Treat an AI-generated citation, summary, or attribution as a lead to investigate—not as evidence. ProPublica states, “We treat AI-generated material as unverified source material.” Its AI principles and Ars Technica’s editorial standards both emphasize independent checking; Ars says reporters should review source material directly rather than rely on AI summaries or generated attributions.
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4. Look for independent corroboration
Seek more than one reliable line of evidence, ideally from sources with separate access to the facts. Several outlets repeating the same press release, post, or original report may amount to one source, not independent confirmation. Check whether another report cites a different document, witness, recording, or direct response.
The Associated Press verification standards describe corroborating facts with documents and on-the-record sources and using several independent, reliable sources. For a claim about a person or institution, look for the underlying record or a direct response rather than relying only on commentary about it.
5. Check numbers, quotations, photos, and video
Statistics
Record the exact figure, the organization that produced it, the year it describes, and the original report or dataset. Do not present a number repeated by a secondary article as though that article conducted the research. Check whether the statistic measures the thing the story says it measures.
Quotes
Compare consequential quotations with a recording, transcript, published statement, or direct confirmation. Check the surrounding context: a real quote can still be incomplete or misleading when separated from what came before or after it.
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Photos and clips
Ask where and when the image first appeared, whether it actually depicts the event in question, and whether it has been altered or reused. Look for landmarks, signs, language, weather, and other contextual clues. The AP describes practices including reverse-image searches, geolocation, contextual comparison, frame-by-frame checks for manipulation, and contacting the original filmer in its verification standards.
6. Reach a conclusion claim by claim
Classify each consequential claim based on the evidence you found. A practical set of labels is:
- Supported: credible evidence backs the claim.
- Contradicted: credible evidence conflicts with it.
- Misleading or missing context: the statement may be technically true but leaves out information that changes its meaning.
- Unresolved: the available evidence does not establish whether it is true or false.
Do not turn “unresolved” into “false.” If a material point cannot be checked, say what evidence is missing. Revisit the article before sharing it to see whether the publisher has added a correction or update; verification can change as new evidence emerges.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What AI disclosures and detectors can—and cannot—tell you
An AI-use disclosure can help explain whether AI materially contributed to a story or its materials. It does not prove that the claims are correct. Conversely, no disclosure does not prove that AI was involved. The AP’s newsroom standards, published July 23, 2026, say: “AI does not replace reporting, sourcing, editorial judgment or verification.” ProPublica says it will disclose meaningful AI involvement in reporting in its AI principles.
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Do not infer truth from fluency, awkward wording, or an AI-detector score. The cited guidance supports checking the reporting and its evidence; it does not establish detector accuracy figures. Asking another chatbot for a final truth verdict does not solve the problem: any claims, summaries, or citations it supplies still need to be checked against source material. Reuters’ standards state: “All facts, sources and claims generated by AI must be independently verified and fact-checked by Reuters journalists.” Reuters also says the organization remains responsible when AI is involved; responsibility cannot be handed off to a tool.
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Keep sensitive information private while checking a story. ProPublica warns against placing confidential source documents into public AI tools where doing so could compromise data privacy.
When you compare coverage of the same event
Compare the evidence each story cites, whether it has access to primary sources, whether its corroboration is independent, how current it is, and how it handles uncertainty or contrary evidence. Also check its correction history, AI-use transparency, and clarity about accountability. These are useful comparison criteria, not a basis for an unsupported universal ranking of news outlets.
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