https://leadstories.com/about.html

Lead Stories is an LLC registered in Colorado.

The Colorado Secretary of State's website shows Lead Stories LLC was incorporated in March 2015, and is in "good standing." Link to view its record may be found here: https://www.sos.state.co.us/biz/BusinessEntityDetail.do?quitButtonDestination=BusinessEntityResults&nameTyp=ENT&entityId2=20151218760&srchTyp=ENTITY&fileId=20151218760&masterFileId=20151218760

Under the About section of its website, Lead Stories has a section titled Company Information. I have included the entire section here for your review. 

'Company Information

Lead Stories LLC is Colorado company formed by Maarten Schenk (Belgium), Alan Duke (California), Perry R. Sanders (Colorado) and later joined by John C. Goede (Florida). The company is self-funded with no outside investors and relies on advertising revenue, license fees for the use of the Trendolizer™ engine and fees obtained through Facebook's third party fact checking partnership and other fact checking related consultancy work.

You can check our entry in the Colorado Secretary of State business registry here (note: if the link doesn't work simply click your 'back' button and reload the page).

If you need to contact us our contact information can be found here.'

1. Lead Stories started in 2015 and transitioned from reporting about viral content into full-time fact checking at the end of that year and early in 2016.

2. The number has grown and fluctuated this year (new hires, people leaving, freelancers...). We now have around 70 people at any given time. Three are the co-founders/partners + one partner who joined later as legal counsel. Four staffers have editor roles, editing and coordinating the work of about ten to fifteen fact-checkers. Three other people don't directly write fact checks but collect potential misinformation for the fact checkers to work on and analyze trends in the misinformation landscape to provide intelligence about to clients. We also have one person exclusively working on website and UI design.  The rest of the staff are freelancers dedicated to our work for TikTok/ByteDance.

3. Fact checking and activities related to or supporting that mission. Beside our website with fact checks we also run and maintain Trendolizer, a software webservice that detects viral content online (used by fact checkers in several countries). We also provide analysis and information about the misinformation we fact check to partners like Facebook and TikTok.

4..One goal for this year is further professionalizing our HR management.  We've grown considerably in the last three years and we've turned several freelance staffers into full-time employees. Our longer term goal remains tackling online viral misinformation as quickly as possible by providing and spreading timely fact checks.  We originally planned to launch a German version of our website in 2022 to experiment with international expansion but due to current events we launched a Ukrainian and a Russian one instead (https://russian.leadstories.com and https://ukrainian.leadstories.com).  Depending on how the war goes we might launch on other languages later.

Lead Stories is compliant and has sufficiently addressed all four questions. Its organization start date, as an example, is listed on the banner of its home page. (Screen shot attached) which is to say that any lay person would visit the site and immediately know the aims of its work dating back to 2015. 

Lead stories publishes about thirty fact checks per week in English.   We do about ten per week in Russian and Ukrainian.                            

Lead Stories publishes the required minimum of fact checks per week. I have reviewed its website, and I have seen that there are fact checks there across a range of dates and subjects. 

We generally cover claims related to politics, current events, health, science, conspiracies, scams and the occasional entertainment story.

I have reviewed the following fact checks. Others will be added to these in later sections of this assessment examining fairness, sourcing, and methodology specifically. 

May 9, 2022: Pfizer Documents Do NOT Show COVID Vaccine Claim Of 95% Efficacy Is 'Completely False,' Do NOT Show Harm To Fetuses

April 26, 2022: Recent Fires At US Food Processing Plants Do NOT Show Plot To Cause Food Shortage

April 18, 2022: Fourth Stimulus Checks Were NOT Issued In December 2021

Based on my review/reading of these and other fact checks, I can confirm that it covers a range of claims and issues, across political partites, and, in the last two+ years, related to Covid-19. 

Lead Stories offers access to the use of its Trendolizer engine on a commercial basis, including to political parties or government entities that request it.  However we currently have no state funded or political actors among our Trendolizer clients. 

Compliant. They are transparent about these relationships, though the relationships do not appear to influence judgment or decision making around fact checks. As an example, on its About page, Lead Stories lists itself as "self-funded": "The company is self-funded with no outside investors and relies on advertising revenue, license fees for the use of the Trendolizer™ engine and fees obtained through Facebook's third party fact checking partnership and other fact checking related consultancy work."

Furthermore, on that same page under "Financial information about our fact checking operation," the site notes that its main funding sources in 2021 are: 

"Here is an overview of our main funding sources for 2021.

Facebook LLC

ByteDance LLC

Trendolizer™ subscriptions (see note)

Repustar Inc.

Google LLC

MGID Inc.

AdSupply Inc.

The bulk of our revenue originated from our work done as part of Facebook's Third-Party Fact Checking Partnership and our work for ByteDance related to TikTok. We also had a small amount of revenue by supplying summaries of our fact checks for Repustar's FactSparrow project."

And further, on its site under the same About page, it notes that: "Usage of the Trendolizer Website or Service does not grant you any influence, say or preferential treatment with regards to the selection of the content we choose to write about, the content of the articles we publish or the rating or conclusions Lead Stories draws about any such content.

No individual Trendolizer™ user accounts for more than %0.15 of our average monthly company revenue. Most users are fact checking organizations and media companies."

See the note on our "About" page: https://leadstories.com/about.html#note

The Trendolizer™ Terms of Service have a clause that reads:

"Usage of the Trendolizer Website or Service does not grant you any influence, say or preferential treatment with regards to the selection of the content we choose to write about, the content of the articles we publish or the rating or conclusions Lead Stories draws about any such content."

No individual Trendolizer™ user accounts for more than %0.1 of our average monthly company revenue.

Also see: https://leadstories.com/code-of-principles.html

We offer commercial access to our Trendolizer™ engine, including to political parties or campaigns that ask for it. All are offered the same conditions including a clause in the Terms of Service that explicitly says using Trendolizer™ does not confer any influence, privilege or say about our editorial work. Trendolizer™ fees are deliberately kept low in order to ensure individual user fees never make up more thanhttps://leadstories.com/how-we-work.html a tiny fraction of our total budget. This minimizes the potential for users to have leverage over us by threatening to cancel their account.

Lead Stories is transparent in how it receives funding as well as how it is independent of political parties and affiliations. This question/criteria also overlaps with information provided in the assessment of Criteria 1.5. I note that no specific dollar amounts are provided nor does the Code ask that of organizations requesting to be signatories. 

https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2022/02/fact-check-photo-of-steve-bannon-with-bloody-mouth-is-not-authentic.html

https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2021/10/fact-check-23000-voters-registered-with-same-wisconsin-number-not-proof-of-election-fraud.html

https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2021/12/fact-check-mike-lindell-did-not-give-closed-door-testimonies-against-trump.html

https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2021/08/fact-check-mike-lindells-numbers-do-not-prove-fake-ballots-injected.html

https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2021/11/fact-check-kyle-rittenhouse-did-not-cross-state-lines-with-an-ar-15.html

https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2021/12/fact-check-canada-did-not-issue-a-list-of-18-words-pr-phrases-that-people-are-no-longer-allowed-to-say.html

https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2021/07/fact-check-rep-marjorie-taylor-greene-did-not-say-jesus-loves-the-us-most-and-that-is-why-the-bible-is-written-in-english.html

https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2021/03/fact-check-screenshot-of-post-fron-robert-aaron-long-is-not-from-a-real-account.html

https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2022/02/fact-check-dan-bongino-used-wrong-places-in-graphic-of-unhealthiest-us-cities-run-by-democrats.html

https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2021/10/fact-check-author-or-article-does-not-question-positive-effects-of-vaccines.html

As our "How we work" page (https://leadstories.com/how-we-work.html) explains, we pick viral stories and claims to debunk without taking political slant into account.  That means we will sometimes debunk false claims or stories hurting the reputation of the very same people, causes or ideologies that we have debunked claims from.  In all cases our methodology is the same (as described on our "How we work" page) and we try to put in enough original sources, quotes, evidence etc. to allow readers to repeat the fact check for themselves so they can see how we came to our conclusion.

The concept of nonpartisanship on the Lead Stories site is an interesting one. It specifically has a "blue feed" and "red feed" related to misinformation about political parties and/or fact checks on issues that may, as a result of the current political climate, appear to be in line with one political party or politician. A screen shot of those links on the top of each page of Lead Stories' website is attached to show what this looks like. With that said, a review of these feeds demonstrates that both major U.S. political parties as well as individual politicians in them included but not limited to President Biden to former President Donald Trump shows that the site is in compliance with a commitment to and demonstration of nonpartisanship.  

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

Lead Stories tends to focus on claims that go viral for its fact checks : It specifically uses data from the Trendolizer (and other data/trend sites) to monitor viral claims, issues, and/or visuals. With that said, the volume of both its blue and red feeds as well as its war (Ukraine) and Covid feeds ensure it does not just examine one-sided talking points. Online, it has a "How We Work" link that explains in easy-to-understand terms, how and why it picks its fact checks/issues/subjects. Furthermore, its site explains the other data/trend aggregators that help it to make its decisions on claims. Here is an example of that information from its site: 

"On a typical day we will look for the most trending stories/videos/posts/... with these tools and pick the ones that meet following criteria:

They make a claim that can be checked (i.e. no pure opinions, predictions, vague statements or prophecies). Note we include claims that could be checked theoretically with access to the right evidence or witnesses but where this very hard or impossible in practice (quotes from closed meetings, insider information...).

They are harmful to someone. We interpret "harmful" quite broadly here, it can include anything where there is a risk of: negative health impacts, reputational damage, political decisions based on inaccurate information, minimizing or exaggerating real problems, emotional impact over fictional stories presented as real, fraudsters profiting from spreading false info, financial loss, distorted understanding of current events, people getting wrongly blamed for things, false evidence being used to support larger conspiracy theories...

They are (likely to go) viral or contain a claim that has gone viral in the past. Note that we don't use fixed numerical cut-off rates (i.e. it must have more than x likes or y views), we tend to look more at the relative ranking (i.e. "this is the most viewed video about this particular conspiracy" or "this is the most popular fact checking related Google search today") and we sometimes also look at the number of places a claim is appearing (hundreds of tweets with the same image and one image tweet with hundreds of retweets are both valid reasons to check out the image). To determine which items are "likely" to go viral we look at short term steep increases in engagement and the audience size of the source making or spreading the claim (an Instagram page with a million followers vs. an obscure blog read by almost nobody).

They are relevant to or affecting a U.S. audience. We will generally leave the internal politics, hoaxes and harmful misinfo going viral in other countries to the fact checkers in those countries unless there is a U.S. angle or the same claims are also spreading in America."

May 9, 2022 Kentucky Derby Winning Jockey Did NOT Reject White House Invitation By Referring To 'A Horse's Ass' -- It's Old Fake Quote

Apparently, this is a fake quote that's been out in the internet for four years but took up a new life on Facebook after the 2022 Kentucky Derby. No jockey made any reference to presidents past or present as a horse's body part. Lead Stories explains that the fake quote originated (in this cycle) in a May 8, 2022 Facebook post. Lead Stories shows a screen shot of that Facebook post with the words Recycled Hoax put over it. Further, it explains an earlier iteration of the same fake element. It says: 'The earliest version was found in a June 10, 2018, Reddit post that cited this quote as a joke about "Triple Crown winner Justify." In 2021, Lead Stories debunked the exact claim in this post -- which was falsely attributed to jockey John Velazquez.'

Feb. 7, 2022 Dan Bongino Used Wrong Places In Graphic Of Unhealthy U.S. Cities Run By Democrats

"The top 10 healthiest cities are the ones Bongino listed on his chart as the unhealthiest, with another mistake. The healthiest cities in the list include Irvine, California, but the Bongino graphic changed it to Irving, Texas. During the segment, Bongino claimed that all these cities were run by "garbage Democrat politicians." Along with the incorrect identification of Irving as one of the unhealthiest cites he was also wrong about its leadership. While the office of mayor in Irving is a nonpartisan office, current Mayor Rick Stopfer has been identified by political blogs as a Republican.

Video from the later airing of the show removed the graphic and ran footage of homeless people in the streets, according to video published on Mediaite.

A Fox News spokesperson told Lead Stories via email on February 8, 2022, that the graphic with the incorrect information would be "corrected" on the upcoming show"

https://leadstories.com/code-of-principles.html (Under the nonpartisanship and fairness section)

This is compliant. Its policy, which is noted online states, "A COMMITMENT TO NONPARTISANSHIP AND FAIRNESS

We fact-check claims using the same standard for every fact check. We do not concentrate our fact-checking on any one side. We follow the same process for every fact check and let the evidence dictate our conclusions. We do not advocate or take policy positions on the issues we fact-check."

Again, I would point to its Blue Feed and Red Feed as examples of how it fact checks both sides of the aisle. I also have reviewed claims related to politicians and issues related to Democrats and Republicans. 

For this section related to sourcing, I have listed the date, the headline, a short description of the fact check, and listed the sources used for that fact check. In all cases, I have reviewed whether the source is an official government one; is a transcript of an official's statement; or alternatively, comes from a peer-reviewed academic work or University, scholarly work. In all cases if a hyperlink to the initial study, video of a person's words, and/or government or scholarly data is provided, I clicked through to see that it was indeed from that place. For Criteria 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, IFCN should be aware that when a source is listed by me, that means that it is considered a reputable source that I have clicked through and reviewed included whether, if it is an academic work, it is a scholarly and peer-reviewed article, which is considered the academy's standard. 

Jan. 17, 2022: Meme Does NOT Paint Accurate Picture Of Effectiveness Of COVID-19 Vaccines

This one centered on a meme circulating on FB that claimed incorrectly vaccine effectiveness would wear off in a few months and everyone would die and go to heaven. So, Lead Stories starts by saying basically that it's true that over time our knowledge of vaccines and effectiveness will shift. In fairness, then they explained how vaccine effectiveness stands based on what was known at the time. 

Sources: New England Journal of Medicine; CDC (including information on its vaccine effectiveness percentages)

May 6, 2022: Fetuses Do NOT Have Fingerprints At 9 Weeks

Lead Stories used Mayo Clinic information that shows fetal development stages (related to fingerprints, heartbeat, feet shape) to debunk this claim circulated on Facebook.

Other sources included: a double-board certified OBGYN; Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research; reviewed journal article in Pediatric Cardiology 

May 5, 2022 NO Evidence Of 'Increased Emergency Cardiovascular Events' In Israel's Under-40s With Vaccine Rollout, 3rd COVID Wave

Study was called limited and that it had "cherry picked" information. 

Sources: American College of Cardiology member; Johns Hopkins Medicine doctor; Pfizer 

April 22, 2022 NO Evidence 'Vaccines Are Killing People Of Color At Twice The Rate Of White People,' As HHS Head Said On April 14, 2022

The HHS secretary said the words, but, they aren't true. 

"Lead Stories reached out to the White House to ask about Becerra's comments. In an email on April 22, 2022, a spokesman wrote that Becerra misspoke. The secretary likely meant to say that COVID kills people of color at around twice the rate as white people, which is more or less true, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)."

Sources: White House spox; CDC; White House video 

Independent organization.

The link to our company registration is on our "About" page: https://leadstories.com/about.html

Lead Stories is an independent organization confirmed by its Colorado registry documents. Its website lists its organization status as well as its funding, executive team, and writers. 

https://leadstories.com/about.html

This is clearly articulated, and I reviewed online where the site lists about itself, its funding, its organization, and how it works. As an example, I've included its Company Information from the site. 

https://leadstories.com/about.html

This is clear and any reader/user could easily understand how Lead Stories exercises editorial control. It lists its management team as well as its fact checkers and writers. Furthermore, it lists all by name with contact information. 

https://leadstories.com/about.html

Biographies are clearly listed. At the end of each fact check I reviewed, the writer's photograph and bio is published. I attached a screen shot of one of the fact checkers as an example. 

Every page on our website has this note in the sidebar:

Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, deceptive or inaccurate stories (or media) making the rounds on the internet.

Spotted something? Let us know!.

The "Let us know" links to our contact page: https://leadstories.com/contact.html (that link is also present under "Contact" in the footer)

Note that on our contact page we explicitly say we will ignore abusive or threatening emails and ask people to send them to hatemail@leadstories.com if they feel they must send them anyway.  Funnily enough this works and the amount of such emails to the other inboxes listed on the contact page has markedly decreased.

Lead Stories invites participation with its staff both on work that could be fact checked or needs to be corrected. It also notes it received hate mail, and I've included a section on that below. 

Related to contacting Lead Stories staffers, I sent an email to alan@leadstories.com at 4:21 p.m. EST on May 9, 2022 to make sure email was functioning and going through. I note that a response is not required, but I received one the same day. 

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

This is clear and follows IFCN's commitment to standards and transparency. Its information on methodology (full methods section is attached) explains there are differences in its approach but questions its staffers consider include the following:

Where did the claim originally come from and is there evidence for that orgin? If something first appeared in a fictional setting or in a satirical piece it is quite unlikely to be true. In some cases it is unfortunately not possible to find the original source.

If the source is known: what evidence does it cite and does it support the claim? (If an article says "New study says X", does the study actually say X?)

Does technical analysis of the source and/or evidence show proof of tampering, editing or manipulation?

Does the claim or the evidence match with the record? ("Does this quote really occur in this recorded interview?", "Was this photo really taken on date X in location Y?")

Does the claim mix things up or cause confusion, intentional or not? (Almost any judge, cop or prison guard in the world can be said to have had "associations with known criminals" and every almost every fireman "has been at the scene of a suspicious fire carrying an axe", that does not mean they are evil or something nefarious was going on.) 

May 11, 2021 The Keystone Pipeline Is NOT Closed And Is NOT Causing The Gas Shortage On The East Coast

Keystone Pipeline is not the Colonial Pipeline, which was targeted with a cyberattack and shutdown for a period that month. That lead to some confusion over which pipeline was which as well as how much President Biden had to do with it. 

The Lead Stories fact check used maps and data from the US Energy Information System to explain the cyberattack and how and where it influenced shutdowns/shortages/price issues. 

May 4, 2022 Biden Administration Is NOT Providing Solar Panels, Tesla Powerwall To Qualified Homeowners For Free

It turns out a Facebook post claiming the government will pay for Tesla solar products is false. 

Lead Stories' method shows it explaining the original bunk post before moving on to explain that there is no government stimulus program and that at the time Build Back Better passed on the US House. 

April 19, 2022 Biden's Gesture Was NOT Directed To Empty Space -- There Was Audience Seating There

It may have, from a tight angle, looked as if Pres. Biden were giving a handshake to no one. But, using wide camera angles from WFMY news, Lead Stories determined that it was not a handshake but more of a gesture to the audience. Lead Stories methodology also shows that it turned to an ABC News local reporter who was there to debunk the Facebook claim. 

June 9, 2021 Marjorie Taylor Greene Did NOT Say 'People Are Dying Who Have Never Died Before'

It turns out the MTG quote is actually from a 1930 letter penned by Ernest Hemingway, appearing on social media as early as 2009. The fact checker in this case found the passage from a Hemingway work and showed it on the page. 

We link to our contact page (https://leadstories.com/contact.html) and sollicit tips on every page on our website:

"Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, deceptive or inaccurate stories (or media) making the rounds on the internet.

Spotted something? Let us know!."

The contact page has this note:

"Tips & information

Have a tip about something we should look at? Additional information that could change the conclusion of a fact check? Email tips@leadstories.com and let us know.

We are most interested in viral claims/stories/videos/images/posts (no matter the political slant) that are false (or very misleading), harmful to someone and relevant to a U.S. audience. If your tip is about something else it is unlikely we will write a fact check about it. You can read more about how we decide what to fact check here."

That last sentence links to our "How we work" page (https://leadstories.com/how-we-work.html) where we explain (among other things) how we select claims to check. It also has this note:

"Reader tips are judged by the same criteria listed above: if we get sent claims that are uncheckable, harmless or not very widespread there is very little chance we will follow up on them. Conversely, a concrete, harmful and viral story will get our attention."

This is clear and user-friendly. I confirm that I read the "How we work" tab of its site to see how Lead Stories discussed with its audience how it works and what could reasonably be covered by a fact check on the site. 

Our corrections policy is here: https://leadstories.com/corrections-policy.html

Our stories with corrections are here: https://leadstories.com/corrections/

Lead Stories has a very visible corrections tab near the top of its site alongside its red and blue feeds. It's clear and states they want to get it right when a mistake has been made. I note that is corrections feed lists three from the last six months, and all of those say Story Updated at the top of the page and explain the mistake and the update.  A copy of its last story/fact check that required a correction is attached.                                                                                                        

Stories marked under the corrections page are marked as having needed a correction with an explanation for transparency. Not only does it meet the criteria, but it's one of the more visible parts of its home page ribbon. 

https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2020/11/no-evidence-provided-to-say-six-people-in-pennsylvania-died-then-registered-then-voted.html

This article was corrected after an internal review found the headline was inaccurate in that it stated Covid-19 was deadlier than Spanish Flu without backing that up with evidence.

https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2022/01/fact-check-covid-19-is-deadlier-than-the-spanish-flu-and-seasonal-flu.html

At the top of these stories it says STORY UPDATED: check for updates below. Corrections are clearly labeled. Stories marked under the corrections page are marked as having needed a correction with an explanation for transparency. I attached a screen shot of its March 17 story that required a correction. This is one example of a story that used the corrections policy, which I reviewed, and found to be in compliance with the IFCN criteria.

https://leadstories.com/code-of-principles.html

The link to the IFCN page is clear and functioning. A screen shot of its web placement is shown. 

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Lead Stories is independent.