Toggle Daily · Methodology
A single event can appear under twenty different outlet names within an hour. This is usually not twenty independent confirmations. Most of those outlets subscribe to the same wire service and are republishing the same account, sometimes word for word. Counting corroboration correctly requires separating two things.
Near-identical accounts published across outlets at close to the same time are grouped and counted as one account, carried widely. Accounts that reach the same facts through different reporting are counted as independent. Only independent accounts move an event toward the reported label. Ten outlets running the same wire copy establish that the account traveled. Two outlets that reached the same figure through separate reporting establish corroboration. The second case carries more weight in the day's report.
An outlet whose full article requires a subscription still publishes a headline and an opening paragraph that state what it reported. Toggle counts that outlet's account in the comparison the same as any other, based on what it published.
Toggle's text states what an outlet reports and never states which outlet reported it first. The text reads "NPR reports" or "Reuters and the AP report," never "NPR first reported" or "Reuters broke the story." Publication timestamps are difficult to verify at the speed news travels, and Toggle does not credit a first report it cannot verify. When several outlets carry a near-identical account at close to the same time, the text describes the account as widely carried.