Sources

Every event in the Cascade Ledger is anchored to one or more cited sources. Sources are classified by reliability into four tiers. The tier system is not a hierarchy of opinion — it is a hierarchy of how directly a citation can be verified by a third party reading the original document.

For the editorial standards that govern how sources translate into confirmed, reported, alleged, or disputed status, see the methodology page.

Tier 1: Court records & government documents

Tier 1 sources are primary records produced by the institutions whose actions the archive describes. They include:

• Federal and state court filings: complaints, indictments, opinions, sealed-then-unsealed documents, docket entries.
• Government filings: SEC submissions, FEC reports, OGE financial disclosures, IG reports, GAO audits.
• Sworn testimony before Congress and other constituted bodies.
• Direct primary documents released through FOIA or the Presidential Records Act.
• Statutes, regulations, executive orders, and the Federal Register itself.

A Tier 1 citation is sufficient on its own to support a confirmed event. The archive prefers Tier 1 wherever it exists.

Tier 2: Established outlets

Tier 2 sources are established investigative outlets with editorial standards, named bylines, and a record of corrections. The working list includes the Washington Post, New York Times, Reuters, the Associated Press, NPR, ProPublica, the Wall Street Journal news desk, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, and the broadcast and print outlets with comparable institutional accountability.

Two corroborating Tier 2 reports — or one Tier 2 report whose claims are documented from a Tier 1 source it links to — are sufficient for confirmed status. A single Tier 2 report yields reported.

Tier 3: Regional & specialty press

Tier 3 covers regional newsrooms, specialty trade press, and credible independent outlets that meet the same byline-and-correction bar but operate at smaller scale. Examples include statehouse reporting outlets, beat-specific publications (legal, defense, energy), and nonprofit investigative shops below the national tier.

Tier 3 citations are routinely used for events that the national press has not covered — local court actions, state agency rulings, regional ICE operations. Two Tier 3 reports, or a Tier 3 report tied to a Tier 1 document, support confirmed status.

Tier 4: Opinion & single-source

Tier 4 covers analysis, opinion, single-source reporting, and outlets without consistent editorial accountability. Tier 4 sources are used for context — they may explain why an event matters, situate it in a broader pattern, or quote a participant — but they are not used as primary evidence.

An event whose only support is Tier 4 will not appear in the archive as confirmed. It may appear as reported or alleged if the underlying claim is independently significant and the reporting is responsibly sourced.

Sourcing in practice

• Every event page lists every cited source by tier.
• A linked Tier 1 document, when it exists, is preferred over a secondary description of it.
• Sources are preserved verbatim; if a URL goes dead, the citation remains and the archived copy is recovered where possible.
• Where reporting later proves wrong, the entry is updated with a correction note rather than silently revised.

For the editorial process, including how readers can suggest corrections, see contribute. For the formal terms under which the citation set may be reused, see license.