Tips & Guides: Accuracy and Fairness Checklist

After completing your story, read it through one last time to make sure you are both accurate and fair in presenting the information. Here are some questions to ask yourself as you read through:

• Do you have a high level of confidence about the facts in your story and the sources that have provided them?
• Have you attributed or documented all facts?
• Have you double-checked the key facts?
• Can you provide the properly spelled name and accurate telephone number of every source cited?
• Are you highly confident that all of the factual statements in your story reflect the truth?
• Are you prepared to publicly defend your fact checking and other methods you used to verify your story?
• Are the quotes in your story presented fairly and in context?
• Are you quoting anonymous sources? Why? Are you prepared to publicly defend the use of these sources?
• Are you using material, documents or photos provided by anonymous sources? Why? How confident are you about the validity of this material? Are you prepared to publicly defend the use of this material?
• Have you used potentially objectionable language or pictures in your story? Is there a compelling reason for using such information? Would the story be less accurate if the language or photo were eliminated?
• Does your headline accurately present the facts and context of your story?

Compiled by Dr. Sherry Ricchiardi, associate professor, Indiana University School of Journalism (Indianapolis). Reprinted with permission.