Source Standards

The value of a PIA investigation rests entirely on the quality of its sources. This page sets out what we use, what we will not use, and how sourcing is presented to readers. It should be read alongside our editorial policy and our investigation methodology, which describe the wider verification process.

Primary sources

Primary sources are documents produced by institutions with legal or official authority over the events in question. They carry the greatest weight in our investigations, and where a primary source exists we prefer it over any secondary account. The categories we rely on:

• Official inquiries and commissions — for example, the Queensland Health Payroll System Commission of Inquiry, or UK Public Accounts Committee reports on the NHS National Programme for IT.
• Court filings, judgments and settlement records — including US Department of Justice and SEC actions in cases such as Theranos and the JPMorgan Chief Investment Office matter.
• Regulator and accident-investigation reports — such as the US House Committee report and FAA-related documentation on the Boeing 737 MAX, and National Audit Office value-for-money reports.
• Audited accounts and company filings — annual reports, regulatory filings and disclosed financial statements.
• Parliamentary and congressional records — testimony, hearing transcripts and official reports, which often contain material unavailable anywhere else.
• Planning and grid-operator data — for data-centre and infrastructure investigations, connection-queue publications and planning records are primary evidence of what is actually being built.

Secondary sources

Secondary sources provide context, chronology and reporting that fills gaps between official documents. We use established business and financial press with a demonstrated record of accuracy — for example, major international financial newspapers and wire services — and recognised technical and industry journals where specialist detail is required. Investigative books by reputable journalists are used as leads and context, but material claims drawn from them are checked against the primary record wherever possible before we repeat them as fact.

What we do not use

We do not use anonymous, unsourced claims as the basis for factual statements. We do not use content farms, SEO-driven aggregator sites, AI-generated article mills, or self-published material of unknown provenance. We do not treat company marketing materials, investor presentations or press releases as evidence of delivery — they are evidence of what a company claims, and are cited as such. Social-media commentary is not a source. Where a claim exists only in a source we would not cite, we do not make the claim.

We also do not imply access we do not have. PIA does not maintain networks of confidential inside sources, and our investigations are built on the public documentary record. If an important fact cannot be established from that record, we say so rather than paper over the gap.

How sources are cited

Each investigation lists its principal sources — typically official documents, court records and established-press reporting — so that readers can check our account against the underlying material. Direct quotations are attributed to their speaker and document. Figures are attributed to the source they come from, and where credible sources give materially different numbers, we present the range rather than silently selecting one. Our commitments on corrections, and how to challenge something we have published, are set out in the methodology and corrections policy.

Source standards are not decoration. In every case we investigate, the official record eventually contradicted the version of events the organisation was telling at the time. Our job is to work from the record, not the version — and these standards are how we hold ourselves to it.

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Last reviewed: 1 August 2026 · Author: Ramesh Dixit