Editorial Workflow vs Fact-Check Workflow

Editorial Workflow

By James Anditis (Journalism)

Manage story assignments, editorial calendars, and publishing workflows for newsrooms.

Fact-Check Workflow

By James Anditis (Journalism)

Verify claims, gather evidence, and document findings with structured journalism standards.

Editorial Workflow

• Tracks stories through pitch, draft, edit, copy, and publish stages with clear status flows
• Creates editorial calendars showing what's publishing when and what's in the pipeline
• Provides assignment templates that spell out scope, deadlines, sources, and handoff protocols
• Manages deadlines with backward-planning timelines from publish date to reporting start
• Generates pre-publish checklists covering content, legal, metadata, and final sign-off

Fact-Check Workflow

• Extracts checkable claims from articles or statements and prioritizes them by importance
• Guides research through primary and secondary sources with documentation templates
• Provides rating scales (True, Mostly True, False, etc.) with clear criteria for each level
• Creates templates for contacting sources and giving right of response
• Organizes evidence collection with checklists for documents, data, and expert sources

Reach for Editorial Workflow when…

• You're managing multiple writers and need to track who's working on what
• You need a clear editorial calendar to plan what publishes when
• You're setting up handoff protocols between writers, editors, and copy editors
• You're training new editors on your publication's workflow and standards

Reach for Fact-Check Workflow when…

• You're publishing an article and need to verify facts before it goes live
• You're writing a dedicated fact-check piece rating someone's claims
• You need to document your verification process for editorial standards
• You're training a team on consistent fact-checking practices