Maintenance
Part of Profile essay guide: access, observation, interviews, and structure
Interview consent, recording, quotation, and fact-check checklist
Interview consent and fact-check checklist covering identity, purpose, recording, ground rules, sensitive details, quotation review, records, and corrections.
What to take away
- Consent must cover purpose, recording, identification, intended use, and foreseeable exposure.
- Ground rules should be stated before substantive material is shared.
- A clean recording does not verify a claim.
- Quotation checks protect wording and context, while factual checks need other evidence.
- Preserve originals, decisions, corrections, and publication terms in a secure record.
Use this checklist before, during, and after an interview. It is an editorial control, not a legal form. Sensitive projects may require local legal advice, institutional review, trauma expertise, or a formal release.
Before contact
- Write the reporting purpose in one sentence.
- Identify why this person is being approached.
- List the information you need from records or other sources first.
- Assess privacy, employment, immigration, health, family, or physical safety risks.
- Decide whether a name, role description, pseudonym, or anonymity request is workable.
- Prepare plain-language information about the publication and likely audience.
- Set a secure plan for recordings, notes, contact details, and sensitive documents.
- Identify who may need an interpreter, advocate, support person, or accessibility accommodation.
Do not promise anonymity until an editor has confirmed that the publication can protect it. A promise can fail through metadata, a distinctive job description, a photograph, a location detail, or another source's wording even when the name is absent.
Before Contact Prep
- Write reporting purpose in one sentence
- Identify why this person is approached
- List needed record information first
- Assess privacy, employment, health risks
- Decide name, role, pseudonym, anonymity
- Prepare plain-language publication info
- Set secure plan for recordings and notes
In the invitation
- State your identity and editorial role.
- Name the subject and broad purpose of the piece.
- Explain whether the request is for background, quotation, observation, or a recorded life-history interview.
- Give an honest estimate of time.
- Say where the work is expected to appear.
- Avoid implying favorable coverage.
- Give the person a way to ask questions before deciding.
- Record any condition that you accept.
Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism's code of ethics asks reporters to take great care to avoid errors of any kind and to correct mistakes promptly in a way likely to reach the original audience.
Invitation Essentials
- State identity and editorial role
- Name subject and broad purpose
- Explain request typebackground, quote, etc.
- Give honest time estimate
- Say where work will appear
- Avoid implying favorable coverage
- Offer way to ask questions
- Record any accepted condition
It asks them to tap multiple sources, identify those sources and their motivations whenever feasible, and be forthright about their role. They must not appear as anything other than a journalist. Those duties continue after a person agrees to speak.
At the start of the interview
- Confirm the person's name, spelling, pronouns, title, and affiliation.
- Restate who you are and what you are making.
- Ask permission before turning on audio or video recording.
- Confirm whether the conversation is on the record.
- Define background, anonymity, or off-record terms in your own words.
- Explain whether the recording may be published or only used for notes.
- Ask about immediate safety concerns tied to identification.
- Note the date, time, place, participants, and recording devices.
Record the consent exchange when appropriate and permitted. Written consent may be preferable for archival, documentary, research, or high-risk work. The amount of documentation should match the duration, future uses, vulnerability, and public reach of the project.
Interview Start Checklist
- Confirm name, spelling, pronouns, title
- Restate who you are and making
- Ask permission before recording
- Confirm on the record status
- Define background, anonymity, off-record
- Explain recording publication use
- Ask about safety concerns
- Note date, time, place, devices
During the interview
- Ask one neutral question at a time.
- Distinguish witnessed events from hearsay and interpretation.
- Request dates, names, places, and records.
- Note recording times beside likely quotations.
- Pause if consent or identification terms change.
- Do not pressure a person to disclose material they have refused.
- Reconfirm consent before moving into a materially more sensitive subject.
- Mark claims that require independent confirmation.
Consent to one topic is not blanket permission for every question. You may ask a necessary difficult question, but the person may decline. Your later decision to publish already reported material still requires a separate assessment of relevance, verification, fairness, and foreseeable harm.
During Interview Actions
- Ask one neutral question at a time
- Distinguish witnessed events from hearsay
- Request dates, names, places, records
- Note recording times beside quotations
- Pause if consent terms change
- Do not pressure refused disclosures
- Reconfirm consent for sensitive subjects
- Mark claims needing confirmation
Before ending
- Ask what you may have misunderstood.
- Ask who could confirm or dispute the account.
- Request relevant records, photographs, or artifacts.
- Confirm contact information for narrow follow-up.
- Restate any identification restriction.
- Explain the expected fact-check or publication process without promising approval.
- Identify any deadline for urgent clarification.
Recording and storage
- Preserve the unedited original file.
- Make a verified backup in an approved location.
- Use a stable file name with date and source code.
- Restrict access according to the sensitivity and promise made.
- Separate public contact data from protected personal data.
- Keep a log of transfers, edits, redactions, and access decisions.
- Set retention and deletion rules before files become forgotten archives.
The Oral History Association's principles for original interviews and archives emphasize documented informed consent, clear preservation and access terms, explicit permission before making interviews public, and opportunities for narrator review when possible. An archival interview therefore needs planning beyond a routine newsroom recording.
Recording and Storage
- Preserve unedited original file
- Make verified backup in approved location
- Use stable file name with date
- Restrict access per sensitivity
- Separate public and protected data
- Keep log of transfers and edits
- Set retention and deletion rules
Quotation check
- Compare every direct quotation with the recording.
- Listen to the sentence before and after it.
- Confirm that pronouns and implied subjects remain clear.
- Do not combine words from separate answers into one quotation.
- Mark omissions and insertions according to house style.
- Preserve dialect and disfluency only when relevant and fair.
- Disclose substantial editing of a Q&A or monologue.
- Attribute disputed interpretations rather than presenting them as settled facts.
A quotation can be word-perfect and still misleading. If a source says "yes" after qualifying a premise for two minutes, publishing only "yes" changes the answer.
Fact-check grid
| Claim type | Minimum check | Stronger check |
|---|---|---|
| Name or title | Ask and spell back | Official record or organization page |
| Date or sequence | Interview notes | Contemporaneous document or second witness |
| Personal memory | Attribute to speaker | Corroborating person, record, or artifact |
| Technical process | Observe or ask practitioner | Manual, standard, independent expert |
| Motive | Attribute to the person | Contemporaneous statement or documented action |
| Trend or prevalence | Do not infer from anecdote | Relevant dataset or study |
| Allegation | Seek evidence and response | Multiple records and independent sources |
Prepublication and correction
- Send narrow factual questions, not a request for editorial approval.
- Give a person a fair chance to answer significant criticism.
- Preserve the exact question, response, and deadline.
- Recheck names, numbers, chronology, locations, and links after copy edits.
- Assess whether accumulated details defeat an anonymity promise.
- Record unresolved disputes and how the language handles them.
- Publish a correction promptly when a material fact is wrong.
- Keep the correction record connected to the article and source file.
Common questions
Is verbal consent enough?
It may be for routine reporting, depending on law and policy. Archival, documentary, research, or sensitive work often needs written and more detailed consent.
Does fact-checking mean sending the full draft?
No. A writer can ask precise questions about facts, chronology, quotations, and context without transferring editorial control.
Can filler words be removed from a quotation?
Follow house policy. Minor cleanup must not change meaning, tone, certainty, or the speaker's apparent fluency in a way that matters.
Should every recording be kept forever?
No. Follow the consent agreement, legal duties, editorial value, security risk, and written retention policy.
