These are the rules The BL:UF Desk works by. They are public on purpose: you should be able to check our work against our standards.
The one rule that prevents most mistakes
Every fact we publish must trace to a primary source. A number, a quote, a name, a date, a study — before it appears in a BL:UF story, someone has put eyes on the original document, dataset, filing, or recording it came from. We do not take another outlet's word for a fact and pass it along; secondary sources copy each other's errors. If a claim can't be traced to a primary source, we cut it or we tell you it's unverified. No exceptions, no "it was everywhere so it must be true."
Sourcing and attribution
- We go to the primary source — the court filing, the agency report, the official transcript, the data — not the headline about it.
- When we draw on another outlet's reporting, we credit it by name, link to the original, and quote only what's necessary. We summarize and point you to the source; we don't republish someone else's work as our own.
- We separate fact from opinion visibly. Reporting is labeled as reporting; commentary is labeled as commentary.
- We tell you about conflicts of interest. When a story touches a company or project connected to us, we say so in the story.
Fairness and framing
We report what happened. When a story carries political framing — from any direction — we separate the documented facts from the contested interpretation and tell you which is which. We don't tell you which way to push. We give you what's verifiable and trust you to think.
Corrections
We correct material errors promptly and in the open, and we keep a public log of them. A correction is not an embarrassment to hide; it's the system working. See the Corrections policy and log.
Artificial intelligence
The BL:UF is produced with AI tools under human editorial direction. We disclose that openly and describe exactly where the human line sits in our AI Disclosure. AI does not get the final call on what we publish — a person does.
The eight transparency indicators
We hold ourselves to the Trust Project's eight indicators — the global standard for showing readers who and what is behind a story:
- Best practices — this page: our standards, ownership, and how we're funded.
- Author expertise — who produced a story and on what authority.
- Type of work — every piece is marked: report, analysis, first-person, explainer, or guide.
- Citations and references — we link to the primary sources behind our claims.
- Methods — for bigger pieces, we explain how we know what we know.
- Locally sourced — we tell you when reporting is on-the-ground versus aggregated.
- Diverse voices — we work to reflect more than one perspective.
- Actionable feedback — you can reach a person: desk@thebluf.news.
Tell us we're wrong
If you can show us a factual error, we want to know before your neighbor does. Write the desk: desk@thebluf.news.