See our about page: https://leadstories.com/about.html

You can check our entry in the Colorado Secretary of State business registry here: https://www.sos.state.co.us/biz/BusinessEntityDetail.do?quitButtonDestination=BusinessEntityResults&nameTyp=ENT&entityId2=20151218760&srchTyp=ENTITY&fileId=20151218760&masterFileId=20151218760 (note: if the link doesn't work simply click your 'back' button and reload the page).

Lead Stories' purpose as an independent hoax debunking site and fact checking entity is clear. Further, Lead Stories is registered with the Colorado Secretary of State. 

https://leadstories.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&archive_type=Index

Fully compliant. 

https://hoax-alert.leadstories.com/3470390-true-news-ken-Kercheval-is-dead.html

https://hoax-alert.leadstories.com/3470384-photo-showing-two-men-smiling-in-front-of-burning-notre-dame-is-not-doctored-but-we-still-dont-know-.html

https://hoax-alert.leadstories.com/3470378-fake-news-78.html

https://hoax-alert.leadstories.com/3470366-fake-news-the-real-cornett-on-twitter.html

https://hoax-alert.leadstories.com/3470364-fake-news-our-national-anthem-video-not-true-story-of-star-spangled-banner.html

https://hoax-alert.leadstories.com/3470354-fake-news-why-men-with-beards-and-long-hair-have-the-smallest-testicles.html

https://hoax-alert.leadstories.com/3470310-fake-news-neuroscientists-say-your-forgetfulness-is-a-sign-of-extraordinary-intelligence.html

https://hoax-alert.leadstories.com/3470283-fake-news-un-to-israel-give-the-golan-heights-to-isis-including-all-its-christian-population.html

https://hoax-alert.leadstories.com/3470246-fake-news-michigan-america-hated-down-with-usa.html

https://hoax-alert.leadstories.com/3470244-fake-news-trump-fordham-1-28-gpa-transcript.html

Our methodology is explained on our "How We Work" page here: https://leadstories.com/how-we-work.html

Generally we select content to check based on internet virality, no matter what the slant of the story is.  We write on a wide variety of topics: science, politics, crime, entertainment, history, breaking news...  For many of these stories there aren't really any "sides" to pick: either a celebrity is dead or alive, whatever we find is the truth doesn't really affect anyone on an ideological or political level.

For stories with a political angle we don't pick sides, we just look at what is going viral.  Sometimes it is a hoax about Trump, sometimes one about AOC.  What matters to us is if it is going viral.

The site says it doesn't follow any political bias and looks at issues/politicians that go viral or are trending.

Examples from May 2019 show one debunked claim with a headline that reads, "Fake News:Fordham University Transcript Showing Trump 1.28 GPA Is Obvious Forgery" and another that says, "Fake News: Maxine Waters Did NOT Say She Would Impeach Donald Trump If She Were President." 

And, Lead Stories political fact checks even get into American history, too, with one fact check from May 14 noting, "Fake News: The Real Reason Thomas Jefferson Owned A Copy Of The Quran Was NOT To Better Know His Enemy. Jefferson obtained his copy of Islam's Quran as a law student in 1765, which was 20 years before he began addressing the problem of North African Muslim raids on U.S. shipping. Historical records and Jefferson's own words reflect that he treated Muslim leaders and their faith with respect, and he saw the North African raids as economic, not religious." 

Fully compliant. 

On our website we talk about the IFCN code of principles and explain how we comply with it: https://leadstories.com/code-of-principles.html

Under the nonpartisanship header we make this declaration:

"None of our writers are members of political parties, support any candidates for office or have made donations to political organisations and we ask them to refrain from doing so."

This remains true and in effect.

Its website reads, "None of our writers are members of political parties, support any candidates for office or have made donations to political organisations and we ask them to refrain from doing so."

Fully compliant. 

Where possible we always link to the articles or posts we are discussing so our readers can go look for themselves. If we think there is a risk the site or page might go down or be altered we will routinely use archive.is to create and link to a snapshot of something the way it was at the time we wrote our own article.

If we use online resources to check a claim we will include a link to these sources in the article.

When we (try to) use people or organisations as a source we will mention where the information came from (or who we didn't hear back from).

Lead Stories clearly states on its website how it uses sources and these could be replicated by anyone.  

In the example regarding Thomas Jefferson mentioned above, a Facebook post implied that Thomas Jefferson had extreme hatred for Muslims. In that hoax Facebook post, a person posted a photo of a book written about the Quran and Thomas Jefferson. 

In its sourcing for the fact check, Lead Stories wrote, "Interestingly, this post includes the cover image of a book titled Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an: Islam and the Founders, written by Denise A. Spellberg, a professor of history and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. This seemed to imply that Spellberg's research supported the post, but Lead Stories learned differently when we contacted the professor. She called it "Facebook garbage:"

Jefferson's views of Islam, though mixed, encompassed the idea that Muslims would one day reside with equal civil rights in the United States. He said so explicitly when describing the intent of his famed Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which became law in 1786. Jefferson bought his Qur'an as a student of religion and law, decades before he considered any conflict with Muslims in North Africa. His record of interaction with Muslims and Islamic powers demonstrates that he treated these leaders and their faith with respect, defining the problem of North African raids as economic, not religious.

Spellberg provided Lead Stories with a point-by-point debunking of the post, with direct quotes from Jefferson and footnotes for those who want to read more about it in her book."

Fully compliant. 

https://leadstories.com/about.html

Clearly stated on its website: "Financial information about our fact checking operation

In the past calendar year (2018) our expenses for running leadstories.com were as follows:

Paid writing and technical staff: $91,920

Hosting: $960

This was paid for with revenue from selling access to Trendolizer™ and advertising revenue from our sites. For privacy reasons we cannot reveal the list of Trendolizer users but none of them individually accounted for more than 5% of our revenue. We also received $102.000 from Facebook under the terms of the third party fact checking partnership. All revenue exceeding costs was used towards debt repayments."

Fully compliant. 

https://leadstories.com/about.html

(Full bios are linked there too)

Author bios and geographical location are clearly listed or easily linked from the Lead Stories website. 

Fully compliant. 

https://leadstories.com/contact.html

Every article page contains a link to that page and the contact details for each author are also available in their bio (summary is presented under each article with link to the full bio if readers want to learn more or contact the author)

Contact information includes both email addresses and phone numbers as well as Skype handles. (I called the U.S. phone number 323-762-3215 listed under 'Editorial' on the website and it went to voicemail--I didn't leave a voicemail but could have.) All contact information is easy to find and would be easy for members of the public to use. 

Fully compliant.                                                                                                      

https://leadstories.com/how-we-work.html

This also links to our brand new "Satire policy":

https://leadstories.com/satire-policy.html

I give lots of credit to Lead Stories for "hunting for"--as it says online--trending hoax stories that should be debunked. More credit is owed to its transparency of methodology, which is clear and offers ways to replicate the fact checks. A piece is included here and could work as a model for other sites--even those that don't use its Trendolizer data to start the process of fact checking. It even created a new "satire" policy, which for some fact check sites has been a gray area. 

'Methodology

Each story is different but these are the questions we try to answer before rendering a verdict and writing an article:

Is this version of the story the original? Or was it taken from some other site, and if so, which one and when?

Once the original source has been established: how reliable it has been in the past? Is it a legitimate news site? Are there satire disclaimers? Is the author identifiable? Is there contact information? Have previous stories from this source been debunked/checked by ourselves or other sites?

If the story is based on a scientific paper or study: can we find the original source and do the claims in the story match the claims in the paper or study? In some cases we might try to get the view of the scientist(s) who wrote the study or paper in order to be sure of our interpretation.

If there are pictures or video in the story: have they been used before elsewhere? Have they been manipulated? Can they be verified?

Do the people, places and quotes in the story really exist? And if so, can they be contacted to confirm what happened?

Is there evidence the events in the story didn't take place?

Depending on the answers to these questions we will label a story "False", "Mostly False", "Unproven", "Mostly True" or "True" after laying out all the evidence for our readers. We may also opt to label a story as "Satire" in accordance with our satire policy.'

Fully compliant. 

Every article has this notice in the sidebar:

Spotted a hoax that you think we should investigate? Have a tip? Want to send us a correction? Contact us!

The words "contact us" link to our contact page: https://leadstories.com/contact.html

However we find most of the content we check through our own Trendolizer engine (see our "How We Work" page) and via Facebook's tool for third party fact checking partners.  Reader tips have increased slightly over the past year but still make up only a small part of what we investigate because there are very few of them.

This is clearly stated, and it appears that Lead Stories may take a fact check case (if you will) from a tip, but it is pretty transparent that it uses this Trendolizer data to go after stories that are going viral. 

Fully compliant. 

https://leadstories.com/corrections-policy.html

Clearly stated. Its website reads, "Lead Stories aims to get correct information out as soon as possible after we detect a piece of trending fake news. Unfortunately this means we sometimes make mistakes (although we try our best to avoid them) or that we sometimes publish as soon as we have just the bare minimum of facts needed to prove something is fake."

Fully compliant. 

https://hoax-alert.leadstories.com/3469464-fake-news-americas-last-line-of-defense-americas-last-line-of-defense-185245-vind-ik-leuks.html

https://hoax-alert.leadstories.com/3470303-fake-news-adam-melissa-schiff-george-robert-soros-marriage.html

Please note: I do not see a link to one separate CORRECTIONS page on Lead Stories website. I do see examples of corrections made. If a full corrections page is required, I would mark this area as "partially compliant" but because I do see the evidence of corrections made, I am listing it as Fully Compliant.