The publication, explained

The Method

What the publication records, what it accepts as evidence and the rules that bind it.

The Record Stands is an independent research publication documenting matters of consequence across power, institutions, money, conflict and society. Its work begins with the news but does not follow every headline.

Its purpose is to preserve those matters beyond the news cycle in accounts that can be consulted long after immediate coverage has passed.

Editorial principles

  1. Primary sources

    Every factual claim rests on primary evidence: a document, an on-the-record interview or published figures used in a disclosed calculation. Each piece identifies the evidence. If none can support the claim, the claim waits.

  2. Artificial intelligence

    Artificial intelligence assists the research by locating documents, checking figures and testing claims against the wider record. It is a tool, never a source. Nothing it produces enters the record until verified against primary evidence.

  3. Published workings

    The documents behind each piece are listed in the Sources: where each came from, and how a reader can retrieve it. A piece is issued only when its file is organised well enough that a stranger could audit it.

  4. Right of reply

    Every person and institution documented is offered comment before publication.

  5. The record is kept

    Sources are preserved as retrieved. Maps and films are reissued as the file grows, each issue dated. The archive accumulates; it does not overwrite.

Correspondence