Aos Fatos is a journalistic company trading name. It is registered under the CNPJ 22.408.117/0001-41 as a micro enterprise and its main activity, due to the absence of another legal term, is editing magazines and newspapers. 

Aos Fatos is a legally constituted and registered organization, opened on May 8, 2015 and based in Rio de Janeiro. The registration check was made at the National Registry of Legal Entities (Cadastro Nacional da Pessoa Jurídica - CNPJ). Aos Fatos is already a recognized Fact-checking organization in Brazil and it is not associated with political parties. The organization checks facts and statements by officials of the three powers of the Republic:

Government, Parliament and Justice.

https://aosfatos.org/noticias/

Aos Fatos publishes fact-checking reports regularly. In the last three months, there are 12 reports posted on the site. Before this time, the number of publications was even larger coinciding with the electoral period in Brazil.

In September, we launched a most acclaimed live-fact-checking aggregator due to Rio and São Paulo's mayoral elections. It can be seen in https://aosfatos.org/especiais/eleicoes-2016/ and is an easy way to show as many factchecks as possible regarding all of the competitors at that time. We constinuously fact-check other politicians and it can be found here: https://aosfatos.org/noticias/. Our main concern is not only provide a regular fact-checking service, but also invest in didactic, visually attractive and journalistically relevant content.

Some preferences regarding subjects or personalities are not visible in the coverage, although there is a greater incidence of reports on statements from federal government officials more recently. What can be perceived in the coverage is also that when some authority or political personality receives more attention from the Aos Fatos it is because this person is in evidence.

A good example of the variety of speakers is a live-fact-checking aggregator launched by Aos Fatos in recent Rio and São Paulo's mayoral elections (https://aosfatos.org/especiais/eleicoes-2016/). No distinction in the treatment of mayoral candidates is perceived in that coverage.

All members of our team have a small profile on our website: https://aosfatos.org/nossa-equipe/. All of them are experienced journalists that are used to follow a strict code of ethics. In order to be admitted to Aos Fatos's team, our journalists verbally agree not to manifest themselves on social media towards any political preferences, either candidates or parties. They are also informed that they can't freelance at organisations that are related to political parties while working for Aos Fatos. It also means that, as we choose our fact-checkers, it is essencial that he or she are not formally engaged in any official or unofficial political activities. They, for instance, can't be affiliated with any political party. If otherwise our journalists choose to go against that requisites, they will be immediately removed from their positions.

Our journalists are free, however, to express critical thought on social media and any other media platforms if their subjects are related to fact-checking and journalism, as well as themes Aos Fatos stand up for: open data, transparency and accountability.

Aos Fatos exhorts our readers and journalists to distinguish political matters from partisan ones.

The signatory explains in detail its method of investigation and the policies to prevent the direct involvement of its employees with the political parties and advocacy organizations. Aos Fatos also states that it does not tolerate any behavior of its collaborators that compromises the exemption and plurality of its editorial line. (https://aosfatos.org/nosso-m%C3%A9todo/)

About 90% of our investigations use public data, that can be displayed by any other person with internet access. They are usually extracted from official databases, academic studies and/or FOIA requests. If they aren't available or if they are too raw, we organise them so that our readers can access them. Off the records sources are less common, and, if they are used, it is mainly to give context. We do have a public method of fact-checking: https://aosfatos.org/nosso-m%C3%A9todo/.

The signatory provides to readers direct links to the original data sources used for checking the information. In some cases, Aos Fatos provides access to its own databases. These bases were organized from data from third parties that were dispersed or unstructured.

The policy of sharing data sources and the method of checking the information is very clear on the Our Method page (https://aosfatos.org/nosso-m%C3%A9todo/).

We have three main sources of funding that can be seen here: https://aosfatos.org/apoie/. We also explain them here: https://aosfatos.org/aos-fatos-lab/. And here: https://aosfatos.org/nossos-parceiros/.

The signatory has a page on his website called Our Benefactors (https://aosfatos.org/nossos-benfeitores/). On that page, Aos Fatos lists the contributors of their first crowdfunding.

On another page, "Learn How to Support Us" (https://aosfatos.org/apoie/), the organization outlines its funding model and also receives donations.

In the Our Partners (https://aosfatos.org/nossos-parceiros/) and the Aos Fatos Lab (https://aosfatos.org/aos-fatos-lab/) pages there are also informations about partner sites and the sale of content to other organizations, but there is no disclosure of numbers.

There is no total revenue information on the website or a detailed description of the expenses, although it is clear that the revenue is dedicated to the payment of staff and freelancers.

https://aosfatos.org/nossa-equipe/

The four professionals of the Aos Fatos team are identified on the Our Team page (https://aosfatos.org/nossa-equipe/) and their professional backgrounds are described on that page.

It is at the bottom of our homepage (and all of our pages): https://aosfatos.org/.

The link to communicate with Aos Fatos is located at the bottom of the website and only opens the user's email program. Beside this link there are also buttons for accessing the Aos Fatos profiles on Twitter and Facebook.

The location of these links and the lack of comment areas harms the experience of interacting with the website.

https://aosfatos.org/nosso-m%C3%A9todo/

Aos Fatos describes in details how they select its guidelines and its verification method on the Our Method page (https://aosfatos.org/nosso-m%C3%A9todo/). The link to this page is located at the bottom of the website page, but it could receive better publicity on the menu.

We don't have a formal page or process mostly because filtering all the claims is tough and demands more journalists that we can afford at the moment. But we use Twitter and Facebook to interact with our readers and pay attention to their demands.

There is no specific page on the Aos Fatos website where readers can submit claims to fact-check.

In our method page, we explain that 'if we make mistakes, we'll correct them'. We'll be publishing a corrections policy page until the end of the month.

There is not a specific page with the Aos Fatos corrections policy yet, but this is something that the signatory promises to solve by the end of this month.

We corrected our investigation by adding information about a housing program from the federal government and showed when and how: https://aosfatos.org/noticias/erros-e-acertos-de-temer-em-sua-mensagem-ao-congresso/. The same happened here: https://aosfatos.org/noticias/aos-fatos-checa-em-tempo-real-o-debate-da-redetv-com-os-candidatos-prefeitura-do-rio/, regarding information about housing taxes.

On the Our Method page (https://aosfatos.org/nosso-m%C3%A9todo/) , Aos Fatos commits itself to making any and all necessary corrections or updates to content pages as are possible to see in these two examples:

• https://aosfatos.org/noticias/erros-e-acertos-de-temer-em-sua-mensagem-ao-congresso

• https://aosfatos.org/noticias/aos-fatos-checa-em-tempo-real-o-debate-da-redetv-com-os-candidatos-prefeitura-do-rio/