C011¶


Research	R0002 — Research Standards for AI-Assisted Writing
Run	2026-03-13
Claim	C011

Claim: Journalism and fact-checking are principles-based, not methodology-based. They lack formal evidence hierarchies, calibrated uncertainty scales, and structured bias assessment domains.

BLUF: Partially confirmed. The specific absences (formal evidence hierarchies, calibrated uncertainty scales, structured bias assessment domains) are well-supported. However, the principles-vs-methodology binary oversimplifies -- fact-checking organizations do have published methodologies, verification procedures, and structured rating scales.

Probability: Likely (68%) | Confidence: Medium

Correction needed: Binary "principles-based, not methodology-based" framing oversimplifies. Specific absences (evidence hierarchies, calibrated uncertainty, structured bias domains) hold, but fact-checking does have methodologies.

Summary¶

Entity	Description
Claim Definition	Claim text, scope, decomposition, status
Assessment	Full analytical product with reasoning chain
ACH Matrix	Evidence x hypotheses diagnosticity analysis
Self-Audit	ROBIS-adapted 4-domain process audit

Hypotheses¶

ID	Hypothesis	Status
H1	Claim is fully accurate	Weakened
H2	Partially accurate -- specific absences hold but framing oversimplifies	Supported
H3	Claim is inaccurate -- journalism has formal methodologies	Eliminated

Searches¶

ID	Target	Results	Selected
S01	SPJ Code of Ethics and IFCN Principles	10	2
S02	Journalism Methodology and Epistemology	10	3
S03	Journalism Methodology vs Principles	10	2
S04	IFCN Fact-Checking Principles	10	3
S05	Journalism Principles-Based vs Methodology-Based	20	3

Sources¶

ID	Source	Reliability	Relevance
SRC01	SPJ Code of Ethics	High	High
SRC02	IFCN Code of Principles	High	High
SRC03	Epistemological Framework Paper (2025)	High	Medium
SRC04	Graves (2017) -- Contested Epistemology	High	High
SRC05	ICD 203 Analytic Standards	High	Medium