Toggle Daily · Methodology

How syndication and independent reporting are counted

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 independent reporting correctly requires separating two things.

Syndication

An outlet publishes an account it received from somewhere else, largely unchanged. Wire subscriptions and republished institutional statements are syndication. An outlet that runs a wire story this way is syndicated, not a corroborator.

Corroboration

An outlet independently confirms the same facts through its own reporting, its own sources, or a separate institutional statement. An outlet that runs a wire story and adds information of its own corroborates the facts it adds.

How each is counted

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 that syndicated the same wire copy establish that the account traveled, and Toggle states them as syndicated outlets, counted apart from corroborating outlets. Two outlets that reached the same figure through separate reporting establish corroboration. The second case carries more weight in the day's report.

Outlets behind a subscription wall

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.

The attribution rule

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.