---
name: claim-verification
description: Verify factual claims, quotations, and media in a draft against inspected evidence and record support, contradiction, and uncertainty.
---

# Claim verification

Test the exact claim the reader will encounter. Use the draft revision, source ledger, and underlying passages. A plausible sentence and a related citation are not enough: the evidence must support that sentence's scope.

## Work

1. Extract material factual assertions from the headline, deck, prose, captions, charts, and conclusion. Split compound claims where separate facts need separate support. Classify observation, attributed allegation, inference, prediction, and value judgment.
2. Link each factual claim to inspected passages or records. Check actor, action, date, geography, quantity, and qualifiers. A source reporting an accusation supports attribution of the accusation, not guilt.
3. Record the strongest direct support, credible contradiction, and relevant context separately. Trace apparent corroboration to independent origins. Resolve discrepancies through originals and later corrections; preserve a dispute when evidence cannot resolve it.
4. Verify quotations word for word against the source, including speaker and context. Check that ellipses and translations preserve meaning. If exact wording is inaccessible, use an attributed paraphrase supported by the inspected account; do not reconstruct quotation marks.
5. For images, audio, and video, examine origin, date, location, edits, reuse, and what is actually visible or audible. Use available verification methods and record their limits. A reverse-search match or detector score is one observation, not proof of complete authenticity.
6. Check analytical inferences explicitly: premises, reasoning, plausible alternatives, and uncertainty. Distinguish evidence of absence from a search that found no evidence. Prefer a narrower verified statement over unsupported precision.

## Output

Return a `claimLedger` tied to the draft revision: exact claim text/location, type, source IDs and locators, support/contradiction/context relations, status, limits, and required wording changes. Statuses may include verified, attributed, qualified, disputed, unsupported, and not fact-checkable. Record quote and media checks with the same traceability.

## Stop gates

Publication fails for a fabricated source, unverifiable quotation presented as exact, invented witness access, unsupported material assertion, or concealed material contradiction. Remove or qualify the affected claim and recheck it. Serious unverified allegations remain on hold; do not make them publishable merely by adding a question mark. A publishable report may honestly conclude that evidence is insufficient. Clear claims proceed without a universal human-approval step.

## Basis

Verification methods are informed by [AFP](https://factcheck.afp.com/How-we-work), [Reuters](https://reutersagency.com/about/standards-values/), and [IFCN](https://www.ifcncodeofprinciples.poynter.org/the-commitments). Ledger statuses are Follow.fyi conventions.