SOURCE STANDARD
Where our figures come from
You do not have to believe us. You can check. Every figure in our pieces has a source, and every source has a page reference: not just a link, but the exact place we rely on.
The rules
- Primary source before secondary source. A primary source is the document itself: the act, the parliamentary paper, the record, the statistic, the judgment, the original recording. A secondary source reports on it. We prefer primary sources: the document itself, not the report about the document.
- At least two sources, at least one of them primary. For every load-bearing fact. Without a primary source we do not publish. The editorial system will not allow publication otherwise.
- Every source has a page reference. Page, table, cell, margin number, paragraph or time code. A link to a 300-page document is not a page reference.
- Order of precedence. Official documents and official statistics before court decisions before peer-reviewed research before original recordings before media reports. We use reports by other media only as supporting evidence, never as the sole evidence.
- Quote verbatim. We reproduce quotations word for word. We mark omissions with [...] and additions in square brackets. Emphasis inside an excerpt is marked as “Hervorhebung durch die Redaktion” — emphasis added by the editorial team.
- Primary and supporting kept apart. In every source list the primary sources come first, with the supporting sources separately beneath. Both are numbered and marked in the text.
- Date of retrieval and archive copy. For every online source we note when we retrieved it, and we secure a copy. What we may mirror publicly, we mirror; everything else we link to and keep as an internal copy. If a source disappears, our check remains traceable; the entry then says: “Source no longer reachable as of [date], a copy is held by the editorial team.”
- Respect licences. We reproduce official works unchanged and with attribution. We use data of the Statistisches Bundesamt, the German Federal Statistical Office, under the Data licence Germany – attribution – version 2.0; the prescribed attribution stands on every chart. We quote press articles by third parties only in the shortest of excerpts.
- Anonymous sources are the exception. Only where the source is at risk, with a reason given in the text and a second, independent confirmation. An anonymous source alone does not carry a rating.
- Charts show what the data show. Every chart has a heading, axis labels, units, a source with the date of retrieval and a data table. Axes start at zero or are visibly marked as truncated. The raw data are linked.
- Images. Every image names its author and licence. Screenshots of other people’s posts are cropped to the evidence; profile pictures and third-party comments are removed. No portrait appears at the head of a fact check.
- Private individuals. Anyone who merely passed a claim on and holds no public role is not named. Minors never.
What we may do with which source
The table says, for each kind of source, what is allowed. It is the basis for the licence field on every source and for the question of whether we may keep a public copy or only link.
| Source | Link | Show excerpt | Mirror in full | Conditions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bundestagsdrucksachen and plenary records of the German Bundestag | yes | yes | yes | Official works without copyright protection. Unchanged, with the paper’s number and date, quoted page by page. |
| Bundestag: photographs and media library | yes | only as evidence, in case of doubt no | no | The provider’s own terms. We link to videos with a time code. |
| Federal government and ministries | yes | yes | as a rule yes | Mostly official works under § 5(2) Urheberrechtsgesetz, the German Copyright Act. Unchanged, with attribution. We check the legal notice of each ministry. |
| Statistisches Bundesamt, GENESIS-Online | yes | yes | yes, including processed further | Data licence Germany – attribution – version 2.0. The prescribed attribution stands on every chart, and we mark any changes. |
| Bundesrechnungshof and the audit offices of the Länder | yes | yes | annual observations yes, other reports case by case | Unchanged, with attribution. The annual observations are parliamentary papers as well. |
| Court decisions | yes | yes | yes | § 5(1) Urheberrechtsgesetz. Anonymisation is preserved, and we never add names. We give the case number, the date and the margin number. |
| European Commission, EUR-Lex, Eurostat | yes | yes | yes | Reuse under Decision 2011/833/EU, as a rule CC BY 4.0. Attribution, changes marked. Logos and third-party works are excluded. |
| Parliaments of the Länder and municipalities | yes | yes | mostly yes | Papers and records are official works. We check the terms of the website concerned. |
| Academic publications | yes, with DOI | quotation under § 51 Urheberrechtsgesetz | only under an open licence | Author, title, journal, year and DOI. We mark preprints as such. |
| Press articles by third parties | yes | shortest possible excerpt | no | Copyright and the ancillary copyright for press publishers. Never as the sole evidence, always only as a supporting source. |
| Social media posts and speeches on video | yes, with date of retrieval | excerpt and still frame as evidence | no, the copy stays internal | We cover profile pictures, other people’s images and third-party comments. Where a post has been deleted, the entry says so. |
| Election manifestos and coalition agreements | yes | yes | no | Protected by copyright. Quotation with a page reference; for promises versus reality the page reference is mandatory. |
What happens to a source that disappears
- For every source we store the date of retrieval and a checksum of the document we retrieved, and where possible the link to an independent archive copy as well.
- We keep a public copy only where the licence allows it. Everything else stays as an internal copy with the editorial team.
- We never mirror official works in altered form. Emphasis inside an excerpt is marked.
- The system generates the prescribed licence formulas from the licence field of the source, so that they cannot be forgotten.
How a rating comes out of sources is set out in our method.