How to check the sources behind a news summary

Check one claim at a time

Start with a specific sentence, not whether the whole article feels convincing. Is it a statement of fact, a forecast, an allegation or somebody's opinion? These require different kinds of support. A forecast should not turn into a certainty when it is shortened.

For example, imagine a summary says a rail line ‘will reopen on Monday’. If the linked announcement says officials ‘aim to reopen on Monday, subject to inspections’, the summary has lost an important condition. This is a fictional example, but the check is useful: compare the strength of the wording with the source.

Read the date and the update note

Check when the event happened as well as when the article was published. An old story can appear in a new post without becoming new information. Look for update or correction notes, especially when the story is developing.

A summary and its source may have been written at different times. If they disagree, look for a later correction or new evidence before deciding which version to share. A more recent timestamp alone does not establish that every claim was checked again.

Follow the evidence to its origin

Ask who is in a position to know. An article might link to a public report, quote someone who witnessed an event or describe documents its journalists examined. A spokesperson's statement is evidence of what that organisation said; it does not independently establish every claim in the statement.

Multiple websites can publish the same wire report or repeat the same press release. That gives you several links, but not necessarily several independent confirmations. Look for who did the reporting and whether another source brings separate evidence.

Use a quick source checklist

Before relying on or sharing a summary, pause on the point that matters most to you. You do not have to investigate every sentence to find a missing condition, an old date or a link that does not support the headline.

• Does the link support this exact claim?
• Are the event date and publication date clear?
• Who originally reported or supplied the information?
• Are allegations, estimates and uncertainty still labelled?
• Does another report add independent evidence?
• Is there an update or correction?

Apply the same checks to AI summaries

Fluent writing is not proof of accuracy. AI can omit a qualification, confuse people or compress a disagreement into a false certainty. Source links make checking possible; they do not make errors impossible.

Informed links summary points to the reporting behind them. Use those links to inspect important claims, and report a problem if the summary does not match. For decisions involving health, money, law or safety, seek the relevant primary information or qualified advice rather than relying on a short news summary.