Popular claims, traced to their source
A statistic gets repeated until it feels like a fact, and the people repeating it rarely open the study. Each piece takes one widely repeated claim and follows it back, one citation at a time, to where it first appeared. At every step it shows what the source said, what the next writer said it said, and where the claim changed. Then it sets out what the best evidence does support.
The first trace is in preparation
Traces publish when they have cleared every check, not on a fixed day.
The five questions
- 1What exactly is claimed
- 2Where did it first appear
- 3What changed at each step
- 4What does the best evidence say
- 5What can fairly be said now
Questions about sourcing or how a piece is checked? How these pieces are made, including how corrections work →