Sources
Where our reporting comes from
Every item in the brief is built from records, documents and named people. This page sets out the six classes of source we cite, what each covers, and how it is checked before it runs.
Last updated: 14 October 2026
How sourcing works here
The brief is short, which means everything in it has to earn its place. Before an item is written, we look for the underlying record — the filing, the docket entry, the advisory, the contract, the interview — and we work from that rather than from someone else’s account of it.
Where the only available account is a claim made by an interested party, we say who is making it and leave the reader to weigh it. When we cannot get the record at all, the item does not run.
Company filings and regulator records
Restructuring and bankruptcy papers, securities disclosures, enforcement actions and orders issued by a regulator. This is where a company states, under its own name and its own liability, what its finances and its obligations are.
How it is verified. We read the filing or the order directly rather than a summary of it, and we check any figure we quote against the document itself. Where a filing only alleges something, we say who is alleging it.
Court records and filed complaints
Complaints, indictments, motions, orders and judgments, together with the exhibits attached to them. Court records are usually the most detailed account of a dispute that exists in public.
How it is verified. We work from the docket entry and keep the case number so any reader can pull the same document. A complaint is a claim, not a finding, and an item drawn from one is written that way.
Lab test results and safety warnings
Security advisories, vulnerability notices, model and product safety evaluations, and recall or warning notices from an agency or an accredited laboratory.
How it is verified. We trace a result back to the lab or agency that produced it and check the version or model it applies to. A vendor describing its own product is treated as the vendor speaking, never as an independent result.
Public procurement and contract records
Tender notices, awarded contracts, amendments and agency spending disclosures. These records show what a government actually bought, from whom, for how much, and when the work is due.
How it is verified. We match entries by contract or award number so amendments are not read as separate deals, and we re-add any total from the records rather than repeating a reported figure.
On-record interviews with named officials
Conversations with people who agree to be named and quoted: company officers, regulators, lawmakers, prosecutors, engineers and researchers who worked on the thing in question.
How it is verified. Quotes are read back to the person before publication, and a title and organisation are attached to every name. If someone will only speak on background, we look for a document that says the same thing before we run it.
Company press releases (company-supplied)
Announcements a company issues about itself: a launch, a partnership, a funding round, a leadership change. We label these in the brief so a reader always knows who is speaking.
How it is verified. We use a release to establish that the company made a claim, and we attribute the claim to the company. Anything that is only asserted in a release is not written up as a fact we have established ourselves.
Corrections
Sourcing is not a promise that we are never wrong — it is the reason we can be held to account when we are. If an item is wrong, or a source does not hold up, we label it and say so in the open rather than quietly editing it away.
Our corrections policy — how a correction is labelled, when an item is withdrawn, and how to report an error — is set out on the corrections page.
Contacting the newsroom
Write to sunny@sbsentinel.live. It is the address we read every morning, and it reaches the same small team that writes the brief.
Corrections and error reports go to that address too. If you are sending a document, a filing or a tip, put what it is in the subject line and we will route it to the right person that day.