01
Cite what you actually read
If you only read the news write-up, cite the write-up. Citing a filing you never opened transfers its authority to your work without the verification that earns it.
For journalists
Three free tools, no account and no tracking. The objectivity check scores a source on what can actually be verified — who produced it, who funds it, whether claims trace to documents, and whether the same organisations and named individuals keep supplying the framing. It does not place anyone on an ideological axis; it tells you how much weight the item can carry.
Enter a website and run the check. It fetches the public pages, looks for ownership, contact details, bylines, dates, funding disclosure, method statements and primary-document links, then fills the scorecard for you. Every box stays editable — override anything you can see yourself, since automated detection reads markup, not intent.
Answer what you can from the page in front of you. Unanswered questions score nothing, so a source that hides its method or its money cannot reach the top band. Nothing you type is sent anywhere — the scoring runs in your browser.
Can a reader see who produced this and how?
Is there a named author or a named responsible editor?
Byline, staff page, or masthead. An org name alone does not count.
Is there an about page stating who runs the outlet and where it is based?
Look for legal entity, registration or address — not just a mission statement.
Is the method published for data, surveys or rankings?
Sample size, dates, collection method, margin of error, question wording.
Is there a corrections policy, and are corrections visibly logged?
A corrections page with dated entries, or update notes on articles.
Are publication and update dates shown on the item?
Undated claims cannot be checked against the record.
Who pays, who owns, and what happens when they are the story?
Is funding disclosed — donors, grants, owners or revenue model?
Annual report, IRS Form 990, funder list, or an ownership statement.
Are conflicts of interest disclosed inside coverage of funders or owners?
A line naming the relationship where the subject is also a backer.
Is sponsored or paid content labelled separately from reporting?
Explicit 'sponsored' / 'advertisement' labels, distinct templates.
Does the entity charge the subjects it rates for status or placement?(yes counts against)
Paid accreditation, paid badges, pay-to-appear listings.
Is the claim traceable to a document a reader can open?
Does it link to the primary document, not to coverage of it?
Filing, docket entry, regulator record, transcript, dataset.
Are numbers attributed to a named, dated source?
Every figure should trace to an agency series or a filing page.
Was the subject given a chance to respond, with the reply included?
A quoted response, or an explicit 'declined to comment' with the date.
Is contrary evidence acknowledged rather than omitted?
A dismissed suit, a passed inspection, a retracted claim mentioned.
Whether the same organisations and individuals keep supplying the framing. Repetition is not proof of bias — it is a dependency to disclose.
Does one organisation supply most of the sourcing in this item?(yes counts against)
Count distinct organisations quoted or cited. One dominant supplier is a dependency.
Do the same one or two named individuals recur as the main experts?(yes counts against)
Search the outlet for the name; note how often they carry the analysis.
Are those recurring voices' affiliations and funders named in the item?
Institute, employer, trade body, or campaign they are attached to.
List the organisations, institutes, trade bodies or individuals quoted or cited in the item, separated by commas. This measures dependency, not viewpoint.
Built for the document types reporting actually rests on: dockets, filings, agency reports and datasets, alongside articles and pages. Fill in what you have; blank fields are dropped rather than faked.
APA 7 reference
(n.d.).
In-text
(Author, n.d.)
APA adds a page or paragraph locator for direct quotes: (Author, 2026, p. 14).
Pattern
Author. (Year, Month D). Title. Publication. URL
APA omits a retrieval date for stable published articles; MLA drops https:// from the URL.
Output follows APA 7 and MLA 9 conventions for these document types. For unusual cases — multi-volume works, foreign courts, house style overrides — check the official manual before publication.
Citation is not decoration — it is the instruction that lets a reader repeat your work. These rules hold in either style.
01
If you only read the news write-up, cite the write-up. Citing a filing you never opened transfers its authority to your work without the verification that earns it.
02
Where a docket entry, filing, transcript or dataset exists, open it and cite it. Coverage becomes context; the record becomes the citation.
03
Statistical series are revised and pages are edited. Record the release or vintage, add an accessed date, and where the page may vanish, save a copy to a public archive and cite both.
04
Point at the document itself, including a page or paragraph number when the reader would otherwise have to search a 200-page PDF.
05
When a source is funded by, owned by, or a trade body for the subject, say so in the sentence that uses them — not in a footnote.
06
A model summary is not a source. Verify each claim against the underlying document and cite that document. If you used a tool to find material, disclose the tool and cite the material.
07
Ellipses must not change meaning, and bracketed insertions must be marked. Paraphrase still needs a citation.
31 free or free-to-register archives where the primary record lives. Cite these rather than coverage of them wherever you can.
What companies tell governments about themselves, on the record.
Search the text of every filing since 2001 — 10-Ks, 8-Ks, proxies, comment letters.
FreeEvery filing a registrant has made, by CIK, with the original documents.
FreeCompany registration records aggregated from official registries worldwide.
FreeLegal Entity Identifiers with parent/child relationships — good for untangling groups.
FreeIRS Form 990s — a non-profit's own funding, pay and grant disclosures.
FreeFederal contracts, grants and loans by recipient and parent company.
FreeFilings, opinions and case histories you can read and cite directly.
Free federal and state opinions plus a growing archive of PACER dockets and PDFs.
FreeThe federal courts' own docket system. Authoritative; per-page fees apply.
Free with accountFree case summaries and opinions, useful for finding the docket number to pull.
FreeSlip opinions, orders, argument transcripts and audio from the source.
FreeInspections, recalls, penalties and complaint records held by agencies.
Inspections, citations and penalties by workplace and employer name.
FreeComplaints routed to firms, with the company's response category, downloadable.
FreeVehicle recalls, investigations and complaints by make, model and year.
FreeConsumer product recalls and public incident reports.
FreeLetters naming the firm, the violation and the deadline to respond.
FreeEnvironmental compliance and enforcement history by facility.
FreeComplaints, consent orders and settlements with the underlying documents.
FreeOfficial series with published methodology, revision notes and vintages.
Employment, wage, injury and price series with methodology and revisions.
FreeHundreds of thousands of economic series with vintages, so you can cite what you saw.
FreePopulation, business and industry data with documented margins of error.
FreeComparable European statistics with published definitions.
FreeCross-country indicators for benchmarking claims about national performance.
FreeReleased documents, disclosures and preserved copies of pages that change.
Searchable, annotatable, publicly hosted primary documents uploaded by newsrooms.
Free with accountFiled public records requests and the documents they returned, with request text.
FreePreserved page versions — save a copy before you cite anything that can be edited.
FreeAuthenticated federal publications: bills, hearings, the Federal Register, reports.
FreeCongressional watchdog audits with numbered reports and full methodology sections.
FreeFree tooling and published ethics or verification standards.
Free tool for cleaning and reconciling messy names in records and datasets.
FreeThe attribution, verification and independence standard most US newsrooms cite.
FreeMaintained list of open verification tools for images, geolocation and records.
FreeInvestigative Reporters and Editors' tipsheets and story methodology archive.
Free with accountGenerate a sourced dossier of reviews, recurring language, legal matters and company replies — every claim linked back to where it came from — then verify each line against the archives above.