Standards
How SmokeScreen works — the method every story on this site is built under, stated once, in the open, so you can hold us to it.
Receipts
Every fact in a SmokeScreen story traces to a named, dated, linked primary source — the document, the filing, the official statement, the unedited record — and those sources are listed at the foot of the story, under “The Receipts,” for anyone to check. When we quote a document, the quote is checked verbatim against the original before the story runs. If a story's facts can't be traced that way, the story doesn't run.
Claims, not creators
We cover claims and the documents behind them — not the people who repeat them. A story leads with the claim and the paper that bears on it. A show or account that aired a claim is credited once, straight, as one source among sources; it is never the headline, and it is never graded. The same standard applies to officials and agencies: what they say is reported as what they say, attributed, with the document attached where one exists.
No verdicts
SmokeScreen does not stamp stories true or false. We publish the documents, attribute what officials and records say, and sort what is documented from what is claimed and what remains unknown — then we stop. The decision belongs to the reader. That is the whole arrangement: read the receipts, decide for yourself. The one label we do use is EDITORIAL, and it marks opinion — a disclosure, not a verdict.
Corrections
When we get something wrong, or a story changes after publication, the correction runs in the open — on the story and in our public corrections log, which records what changed, in which story, when, and why. We intend to keep that page short, and we intend to keep it honest.
Story ideas and challenges
Readers are part of the checking. Every story page carries a “Challenge this story” box: if you think we got one wrong, send the document that proves it, and if you're right the correction runs on the story, with credit. Story ideas come the same way — have an idea for a story? Tell us your thoughts. Tips that arrive with documents attached get read first.
Masthead
Founder & Editor: Kris Rodobolski.
Reporting: the SmokeScreen Desk, Toronto.
SmokeScreen is an independent newsroom. No leanings. No team.