I promised to send you all, our beloved newsletter subscribers, two things at the end of our last episode, which we recorded live on stage at On Air Fest with V Spehar of Under the Desk News.

1. A working rundown of our editorial policies here at Question Everything.
   
   
2. A picture of me in a musical in high school, after V and I discovered while putting together this segment that WE WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL TOGETHER and did community theater together. 

Read through 1 to get to 2. 

There was a moment in my interview with V where I found myself assuming the role of the stiff journalist, asking about what old-school principles they adhere to at Under the Desk News. And afterward, as we were putting the episode together, it occurred to me: I wrote down a list of journalistic practices to ask V about — practices we abide by here at Question Everything — without ever having articulated them and shared them with you, our listeners. 

Which means we’re busting our asses to do a lot of behind-the-scenes work that I assume you assume we’re doing. 

But honestly, the more our team reports on the wild digital information ecosystem we’re living in — whether it’s Under the Desk News or Tangle or The Grayzone or NPR or HBO — the more I realize it's crazy to assume anything about how anybody does anything when it comes to making stories.

So, I want to take this opportunity to let you know some important parts of our process and to ask you your thoughts about it — to help us evolve and refine it. 

So, here we go. On this show, on Question Everything, we fact-check each episode. We hire independent fact-checkers to do this — it’s a respectable portion of our budget (thank you KCRW!)

We do this because our stories are the product we’re providing to you. And we want you to be able to use our product — to use our reporting — to make decisions in your life: about which media outlets to give your attention and money to; which policies to support; what to think about other people, maybe people with different points of view than you. All sorts of stuff. We want you to be doing that on reliable, verified information. 

In an era where fact-checking is getting rarer by the minute, thanks to Mark Zuckerberg sure but also at legacy news organizations, this is something that we want our show to be known for. We’re a show about truth, and truth requires checking facts. 

We’ve been talking about doing a more in-depth episode on fact-checking, which is actually a fascinating, surprisingly trippy process that I love to talk about — but for now, just to give you an overview: our fact-checkers go through each episode, line by line, making sure each statement of fact is backed up.

Our scripts from the Jeremy Loffredo episodes, for reference, had over 600 footnotes altogether; our episode about the Pulitzer lawsuit had 276. This episode with V Spehar had 90. In going through it, our fact-checker noticed some inaccuracies: for instance, from the TikTok V made, live, while we were on stage: it’s actually Hawaii’s governor, not the state’s Senator Brian Schatz, who is working to rehire federal workers who were laid off — and that program is still in early stages.

We’ve found it can be tricky, especially when we’re trying to air off-the-cuff conversations like the one on stage with V, or the drinking sessions with journalists we convene at the wine shop, to figure out how to fairly reflect the conversation as it happened, while also not letting inaccurate information air unaddressed. So generally, to let you know how we’re doing it: depending on the situation, we’ll sometimes edit out from a conversation or interview lines that are untrue. We did that in this recent episode with a few things.

Other times the reporter or I will come in and correct or add context to an inaccuracy, or tell you that we’re getting something from one source and weren’t able to independently verify it. And sometimes, we’ll list clarifications in the show notes. 

If we find out we aired an error, we’ll correct it: in the show notes, and sometimes in the episode itself. I feel like I’m tempting fate here but we have not been made aware of any error that we’ve run unaddressed. 

And then yeah — the other main tenets I put to V in our conversation, those are our practices at Question Everything too. We do try to reach people and organizations we’re reporting on, especially if there are things in the story that might reflect negatively on them. We did that, in this episode, with the NPR communications department and the host who interviewed V on Weekend Edition. Neither gave us an on-the-record comment. We do this for a couple reasons: because we want to make sure we’ve considered the relevant perspectives and know if we missed anything important. But also, we don’t want someone to be surprised that we’re reporting on them.

And as for funding, and independence: this show is entirely supported by KCRW, a nonprofit. We do run advertising, but our and KCRW’s editorial teams independently decide the content. Advertisers get no visibility or say into that.

Here’s what I want to know: what do you think about this whole explainer I just gave you? What do you think about these practices? Do you agree with them? Do you care about us verifying whether V and I were both in Children of Eden together or not (thanks to my mom for digging up our old playbills)? Do you like knowing how we do things? Are there things you’d like us to consider in how we do journalism here at Question Everything? This show is new, and small, and we’re evolving as we grow. So these principles can and will evolve too. We want to hear what you think. Respond to this email, or email us at hey@placementtheory.com, or DM me on Instagram: @brihreed. 

Ok, you’ve made it! Here’s me, the summer after my sophomore year in high school, as a member of the chorus in Children of Eden. I’ll give you a couple extras — including one with my grandma and grandpa, who’s especially on my mind right now, as he died a year ago this week.

Brian