Methodology
Barr Record publishes claims about a sitting member of Congress. That carries a duty of care, so the standards below are applied to every page.
Sourcing
Primary documents come first: roll-call votes, bill text, campaign-finance filings, court records and agency publications. Reporting by established outlets is used where it establishes facts a primary document does not, and is labelled as a news report.
Every material claim carries at least one source, and the 33 sources in use are listed in the research library with publisher, date and excerpt.
Classification
Each claim is labelled so readers can weigh it:
- Official record — a vote, statement in the record, or government action.
- Filing — a document submitted to a regulator, such as the FEC.
- Government publication — an agency or congressional publication.
- News report — reporting by a third-party outlet.
- Opinion — analysis or characterisation, clearly marked as such.
- Allegation — an unproven assertion attributed to a named source.
- Campaign statement — a claim made by a campaign or its surrogates.
Verification status
Pages show whether an item is Verified, Needs Verification, Context Required or Draft. Nothing marked Do Not Publish is displayed publicly.
Fairness
Where a vote is against a large package, the page says what else was in the package. Contributions are never described as purchases of a vote. Barr’s stated position is included wherever it is on the record, and any response received is published in full.
Corrections
Errors are corrected promptly and logged publicly on the corrections and responses page. Write to [corrections@example.org].