Is This Source Credible? Six Questions to Ask

Credible is a property of a claim, not a logo

People ask "is this source credible" as if the answer were a label on the outlet. It is not. A wire service can run a wrong headline and an obscure blog can quote the primary document correctly. Credibility is earned claim by claim: did this report cite evidence you can check, and does that evidence say what the report says it says?

That is why Factful checks articles rather than ranking publishers. The same six questions below work on any source, from a national newspaper to a screenshot in a group chat.

Six questions that settle it

Work through these in order. Most unreliable sources fail by question three.

1. Who is behind it: a named author, an editorial team, a corrections policy and a way to reach them. No names and no corrections route is a red flag.
2. What is the primary source: a document, dataset, court filing, transcript or named witness. If the report only cites other reports, keep following the chain until you reach something original.
3. Does the evidence match the claim: open the cited source and read the relevant passage. Headlines routinely overstate what the underlying document says.
4. Is anyone independent reporting the same thing: two outlets quoting the same press release is one source, not two. Look for separate reporting with its own sourcing.
5. When was it published and has it been updated: breaking-news stories change by the hour, and an accurate report from last year can be false today.
6. What does the page want from you: outrage, a share, a donation, a purchase. Strong emotional framing is not proof of falsehood, but it is a reason to slow down.

Signals that look like credibility but are not

A .org domain, a professional design, a large follower count, a blue check, a "fact-checked" badge on the page itself, and confident writing all cost nothing and prove nothing. The only signals that survive scrutiny are the ones you can verify: named sources, linked documents and a record of corrections.

Be equally careful in the other direction. An ugly page, a small outlet or an unfamiliar name does not make a report false. Judge the sourcing, not the styling.

Let Factful do the checking

Paste the article URL on the Check an article page. Factful extracts the testable claims, searches for independent reporting and primary sources, and gives each claim a verdict with the evidence shown. When the evidence is missing it says unverifiable instead of guessing, which is exactly the answer a careful reader should settle for.