Source Policy

Sources are classified as primary or official (UN, AU, EU, ICRC, governments, regional authorities), structured datasets (ACLED, HDX, ReliefWeb), wire services, local media, news search, Tigray Monitor outreach, and public submissions. Independence is judged by the underlying evidence lineage, not by outlet or document count: syndicated copies of one report count once, and multiple notes from one outreach effort remain one group.

• Every retrieved document is preserved with URL, publication and retrieval time and a content hash.
• Claims are stored verbatim per source and shown side by side. We do not merge them into one account.
• Two independent sources are required for Corroborated; a primary source and reviewer approval for Verified.
• Local media, including Addis Standard, are treated as identifiable sources with the same weight rules as any other outlet; their coverage of Tigray is ingested in full where their site allows.
• Search engines are used for discovery only. The originating publisher is recorded on each item.
• Tigray Monitor outreach identifies first-hand information actively collected by the editorial team. It passes source-protection and human review, and counts as one evidence group per underlying outreach effort rather than one group per interview note.
• Licensing terms of each source are recorded and respected: ACLED requires attribution; Google News feeds restrict commercial use; ReliefWeb requires a registered application name.