Q001 — ACH Matrix¶


Research	R0050 — Journalism and Other Truth-Seeking Disciplines
Run	2026-03-31
Query	Q001

Matrix¶

	H1: Formal elements exist	H2: No formal elements	H3: Informal analogues
SRC01-E01: PolitiFact Truth-O-Meter six-level scale	+	-	+
SRC01-E02: PolitiFact lacks evidence hierarchy, bias assessment, source tiering	-	+	++
SRC02-E01: NewsGuard 9-criterion weighted 0-100 scoring	++	--	+
SRC03-E01: IFCN lacks all four structured elements	-	+	+
SRC04-E01: BBC informal source categories	N/A	+	++
SRC05-E01: Verification Handbook principles over frameworks	-	+	++
SRC06-E01: Bellingcat case-by-case methodology	N/A	+	+

Legend:

++ Strongly supports
+ Supports
-- Strongly contradicts
- Contradicts
N/A Not applicable to this hypothesis

Diagnosticity Analysis¶

Most Diagnostic Evidence¶

Evidence	Why Diagnostic
SRC02-E01	NewsGuard's formal scoring system strongly discriminates between H1 and H2 — it is clearly a formal structured system, eliminating the absolute negative hypothesis
SRC01-E02	PolitiFact's explicit absence of three elements despite having the Truth-O-Meter discriminates between H1 (partial) and H3 (dominant pattern)

Least Diagnostic Evidence¶

Evidence	Why Non-Diagnostic
SRC06-E01	Bellingcat's case-by-case approach is consistent with both H2 and H3 and does not discriminate between them

Outcome¶

Hypothesis supported: H3 — Journalism has recognizable analogues that remain informal or narrowly scoped. The dominant pattern across six sources is principle-based evaluation with editorial judgment.

Hypotheses eliminated: H2 — The absolute claim that no framework has any formal elements is contradicted by NewsGuard's scoring system.

Hypotheses inconclusive: H1 — Partially supported by NewsGuard and PolitiFact, but these are narrow matches (outlet rating and claim rating respectively, not evidence quality evaluation).