Religious Liberty TV

Effective June 1, 2008 · Last reviewed July 29, 2028

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The standard

Nothing is published because it is plausible, because a party asserted it, or because another outlet reported it first. Every factual claim we publish has been traced to a source we have examined ourselves.

Religious liberty litigation is contested ground. The parties to these cases are sophisticated, well-resourced, and highly motivated to characterize rulings in their own favor — often within minutes of release, and often in ways the opinion does not support. Litigants on both sides of a case will describe the same decision as a decisive win. Our function is not to relay those characterizations. It is to read the opinion.

Where verification fails, we hold the story. We do not publish hedged, unverified assertions and leave readers to sort them out.

Source hierarchy

For any claim about what a court, legislature, or agency did, we work from the highest available tier and cite it directly:

1. The primary document itself — the slip opinion or published opinion, the order, the docket entry, the transcript, the enrolled bill, the Federal Register notice, the signed executive order, the filed brief, the recording of the argument or hearing.
2. The official repository — the court’s own website, PACER, the Federal Register, Congress.gov, the state legislature’s bill tracker, the agency’s own publication.
3. A verifiable mirror of the primary document — CourtListener, DocumentCloud, Justia, or an equivalent, where the document is reproduced in full and can be checked against the official version.
4. Direct statements from named parties, counsel, or officials, obtained by us or verifiable in full context.
5. Reporting by other outlets — used only to alert us that something has happened, never as the basis for a factual claim. If we cannot reach tier one through three, we say what we could not verify.

We link readers to the primary document wherever one exists. If our account of a ruling and the ruling itself diverge, the reader should be able to see it.

Before publication

Every article is verified against the following before it goes live.

Case and citation accuracy. Case name, court, docket number, panel or en banc status, date of decision, and reporter citation are each checked against the docket and the opinion. Case names are checked for the correct party ordering on appeal.

Holding accuracy. What the court actually decided is confirmed against the opinion’s own language. We distinguish the holding from dicta; the majority from concurrences and dissents; a ruling on the merits from a decision on standing, ripeness, mootness, or jurisdiction; and a grant of certiorari from a decision of the case.

Procedural posture. Whether the ruling is a temporary restraining order, preliminary injunction, summary judgment, final judgment, stay pending appeal, remand, reversal, vacatur, or denial of review. What remains live in the case. What the practical effect is on the parties as of the moment of publication.

Scope. Whether a ruling binds one district, one circuit, one state, or the nation; whether it is precedential or unpublished; whether it applies to the named parties only.

Quotations. Every quotation from an opinion, brief, statute, filing, hearing, or interview is checked word-for-word against the source text or recording. Ellipses and bracketed alterations are checked to confirm they do not change meaning. We do not quote a quotation as it appeared in another outlet’s coverage.

Statutory and regulatory text. Quoted or characterized language is checked against the enrolled bill, official code, or Federal Register text — not against a summary, a press release, or a bill tracker’s synopsis. Current status and effective dates are confirmed.

Names, titles, and affiliations. Judges, counsel of record, parties, officials, and organizations are checked for correct spelling, current title, and accurate description. Judicial appointments are confirmed against official court biographies.

Numbers. Vote counts, dollar figures, dates, filing counts, poll results, and statistical claims are traced to their origin. For survey data we confirm the sponsor, fielding dates, sample, and margin of error before citing a result, and we do not report a finding without them.

Links. Every outbound link is opened and confirmed to resolve to the document described.

Breaking decisions

Court decisions arrive without warning and are misreported within minutes, usually by people who have not finished reading them.

When a significant ruling lands, our sequence is fixed:

1. Obtain the opinion. We do not report on a decision we have not read.
2. Publish only what the document establishes. An initial post states the court, the case, the disposition, the vote, and the immediate effect. It does not characterize significance or predict consequences.
3. Label it. Early reporting on a developing decision is marked as such, with a timestamp.
4. Expand after full review. Analysis of reasoning, concurrences, dissents, and implications follows once the full opinion — including separate writings, which frequently matter more than the syllabus — has been read.
5. Never lead with the syllabus alone. A syllabus is not part of the opinion and is not authority for what the Court held.

Speed is subordinate to accuracy without exception. Being second and correct is the outcome we choose every time.

Claims by parties, advocates, and officials

Litigants, advocacy organizations, government offices, and counsel are sources of information about their own positions and conduct. They are not sources of fact about what a court held.

• A press release is evidence that a statement was made, not that its contents are true.
• Characterizations of a ruling by counsel for a party are attributed to that party, checked against the opinion, and corrected in our own voice where they misstate it.
• Where a party’s account of a filing or ruling conflicts with the document, we report the document and note the discrepancy.
• Claims about an opposing party’s conduct, motives, or beliefs are not published on one side’s assertion alone.

Comment and right of reply

Before publishing material adverse to an identifiable person or organization, we seek comment and allow a reasonable opportunity to respond, proportionate to the seriousness of the claim and the urgency of the story. Where a subject declines or does not respond by the deadline, we say so. Where a response arrives after publication and is substantive, we add it.

Confidential sources

We prefer named sources and use confidential ones only where the information is of clear public importance and cannot be obtained otherwise.

• Anonymity is granted by an editor, not by the reporter alone.
• The editor knows the source’s identity.
• We explain to readers why anonymity was granted and describe the source’s position with as much specificity as safety permits.
• Information from a confidential source is corroborated by a document or a second independent source before publication.
• Anonymity is not granted to allow a source to attack an identified person without accountability.

Documents, images, and video

Documents received from sources are authenticated against the docket or the issuing body before we rely on them, and we consider what the provider’s interest in supplying them may be. Photographs and video are verified for origin, date, and location before use; archival material is labeled with its original date; nothing is presented as depicting an event it does not depict. Images are not altered beyond standard cropping and exposure adjustment, and we do not publish AI-generated imagery of real people, places, or events.

Artificial intelligence

We do not publish AI-generated text as reporting. Generative tools are not used to draft articles, produce quotations, summarize opinions for publication, or generate legal citations, which such systems fabricate with fluency and confidence.

Where these tools assist in background tasks — transcription, translation, searching a long record, or copy editing — the output is verified by a person against the source before any of it reaches an article. Responsibility for every published word rests with the named human author and the editor.

News, analysis, and opinion

We publish all three and we distinguish them.

News reports what happened, verified as above. Analysis interprets a ruling’s reasoning or consequences; its factual foundation is verified to the same standard, and its judgments are identified as judgments. Opinion and commentary, including contributed pieces, are labeled and carry the author’s byline and affiliation.

The distinction does not relax verification. An analysis piece may argue that a decision was wrongly reasoned; it may not misstate what the decision said.

Who checks

Verification is the responsibility of the reporter and is confirmed by an editor before publication. No article publishes without a second person having reviewed it against its sources.

Coverage involving significant legal complexity, serious allegations against named individuals, or novel constitutional questions receives an additional review by an editor with relevant subject-matter expertise. Where a story concerns an organization, funder, or individual connected to this publication, that relationship is disclosed in the article and the review is conducted by an editor without the connection.

When we get it wrong

Verification reduces error; it does not eliminate it. Errors that reach publication are handled under our [Corrections Policy], which governs how corrections, clarifications, and retractions are evaluated, published, and archived.

Tell us

If you believe we have published something unverified or inaccurate, write to [corrections@religiousliberty.tv] with the article URL, the passage at issue, and any supporting source. Questions about these standards may be directed to [editor@religiousliberty.tv].