Editorial Guidelines / Accuracy & Sourcing

1 Accuracy & Sourcing

Accuracy is more important than speed. We would rather publish an hour later than publish something we cannot stand behind.

On this page

Section 1.1 Principles

Lifebogger’s core output is biography — accounts of real people’s lives, careers, families and origins. Much of what circulates online about these subjects is unsourced, copied between sites, or simply invented. Our value to readers depends entirely on not being part of that cycle.

Accuracy for us means more than avoiding falsehoods. It means being honest about what we know, how we know it, and what remains uncertain. A well-sourced article that says “this remains unconfirmed” is stronger than one that guesses confidently.

Section 1.2 Sourcing Standards

  1. 1.2.1 Any statement of fact about a living person must be traceable to a source a reader could check. If we cannot name where it came from, we do not publish it as fact.
  2. 1.2.2 Acceptable primary sources are: the subject’s own public statements or verified accounts; official club, league or federation communications; court, government or civil records; and reporting by an established news organisation that names its own source.
  3. 1.2.3 Aggregator sites, fan wikis, celebrity net-worth databases, content farms and AI chatbots are not sources. They may be used to find a lead, never to support a claim.
  4. 1.2.4 Where a claim about a person’s private life, family or finances is not on the public record, it requires two independent sources before publication. Two sites repeating one original report count as one source.
  5. 1.2.5 Where a source is a translation, we check the original-language wording before relying on it. Mistranslated quotes are a recurring cause of error in football reporting.
  6. 1.2.6 Photographs must be licensed, supplied, or used under a documented permission. We do not lift images from private social accounts.

Section 1.3 Rumour, Transfers & Speculation

  1. 1.3.1 Speculation must be labelled as speculation in the same sentence, not corrected further down the page. A headline may not state as settled something the article treats as unconfirmed.
  2. 1.3.2 Where we report someone else’s claim, we attribute it plainly — who said it, where, and when. “Reports suggest” without a named origin is not attribution.
  3. 1.3.3 Relationship status, pregnancy, separation, illness and religious belief are never reported on rumour, regardless of how widely the rumour has spread.

In practice

Not acceptable “Player X and his girlfriend Y are expecting their first child.” — sourced to a fan forum post.

Acceptable “Player X announced on his verified Instagram account on 3 March that he and his partner are expecting a child.” — sourced, dated, attributable.

Section 1.4 Money, Statistics & Records

  1. 1.4.1 Net worth, salary, transfer fee and endorsement figures must cite a named publication or official filing, and must carry the date of that figure. Financial figures without a date mislead by default.
  2. 1.4.2 Where a figure is an estimate, we say it is an estimate and say whose estimate it is. We do not present a range as a precise number.
  3. 1.4.3 Career statistics, appearance counts and honours are taken from an official competition source, not from memory or from another blog.
  4. 1.4.4 Dates of birth, birthplaces and nationality claims are checked against an official or federation record wherever one exists.

Section 1.5 AI & Automated Tools

  1. 1.5.1 AI tools may be used for drafting, structuring, summarising and language editing. They may never be used as a source of fact.
  2. 1.5.2 Every factual claim in an AI-assisted draft must be independently verified against a real source by the writer before publication. The writer, not the tool, is accountable for the finished article.
  3. 1.5.3 We do not publish AI-generated images of real people, and we do not publish AI-generated quotes under any circumstances.

Section 1.6 Mandatory Referrals

Refer to an editor before publishing

A writer may not publish the following on their own judgement, even where the guidelines above appear to permit it. Referral means written approval from an editor, recorded before the article goes live.

  • Any allegation of criminal conduct, doping, match-fixing or financial wrongdoing.
  • Any claim resting on a single anonymous source.
  • Any report of a death, serious illness or injury not yet officially confirmed.
  • Any material correction to an article that has already been published for more than 24 hours.
  • Any article where the subject or their representative has already contacted us in dispute.
All guidelines 2. Privacy & Family Members