About
The Unfortunate Truth (TUT) is an independent journalism organization founded in 2020 at Boston College, focusing on the storytelling of vulnerable communities.
Mission Statement:
Our mission is to harness the power of young people and social media to amplify the stories of underrepresented communities, both locally and globally, ensuring their voices are heard and their realities accurately represented in a time of immense misinformation and disinformation.
Our goals:
To counter misinformation and disinformation on social media
Amplify the youth's voice
Support local news
Create people-centric news
Advocate for the most marginalized members of societies
Why subscribe to us?
Our bi-weekly newsletter provides you with digestible news of under-covered and marginalized communities around the world. Unlike the mainstream media, we are a grassroots media outlet funded by subscribers like yourself.
As young people passionate about making a difference, we hope to change the news industry by amplifying the voices of the powerless, sharing vital resources, and educating our audience using the highest standards of journalism.
Fact-checking
A rigorous fact-checking process is at the heart of trustworthy journalism. We pride ourselves on producing factual, clear, and accessible content rooted in evidence. The following editorial principles guide our reporting and shape the standards we uphold in our newsroom:
Fact-checking editorial principles
Climate Change: Our editorial stance affirms the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is real and primarily driven by human activity. We are committed to accurately reporting its causes, impacts, and policy responses.
U.S. Election Integrity: Joe Biden won the 2020 U.S. presidential election, and Donald Trump won the 2024 election. Multiple audits, court rulings, and investigations have found no evidence of widespread voter fraud that would have altered the outcome.
Historical Legacy and Structural Inequality: Our reporting acknowledges that the legacy of slavery, segregation, and Jim Crow continues to influence American institutions, laws, and social outcomes. We aim to provide context on how history shapes present-day systems.
Geopolitical Influence: We track and report on the growing influence of global powers, including their strategic, economic, and informational efforts to shape international affairs and domestic discourse in other nations.
Misinformation and Democratic Stability: We believe misinformation and disinformation are critical threats to democratic institutions and informed public discourse. Our newsroom prioritizes fact-based reporting and actively counters false or misleading claims.
The newspaper model
Due to our limited resources and the rapid pace at which the news moves, we cannot create original content consistently. Instead, we rely on well-established news outlets to provide information for our audience in the quickest way possible. However, our journalists are instructed to cite primary sources in their content, when possible. But they may reference secondary sources with at least three sources to verify a claim. If we obtain information from a news outlet, we will credit them along with their author.
TUT uses the newspaper model, which places the primary fact-checking responsibility on the journalist. We only provide light fact-checking and editing.
They are required to check basic facts in the story against the original source materials.
Our journalists must consider the truthfulness of the story’s overarching themes, narrative arcs, or thesis arguments.
They look for potential errors of omission (ex: key information that contradicts or complicates the story's angle or thesis).
In cases where primary sources are impossible to find — and this should be rare — our journalist can use at least three unrelated and reliable secondary sources per fact
They must be aware of controversial or critical topics and pay special attention to word choice and fairness.
We do not just mark a fact as wrong, but we provide an accurate replacement that fits in roughly the same amount of space.
If they see evidence of plagiarism or other misconduct by the journalist, they need to alert us immediately.
Our journalists are always diplomatic with their colleagues
They must be aware of confirmation bias.
Generative AI
TUT does NOT create stories using generative AI. The only exceptions include organizing research, spelling/grammar checking, and citations.
Our team
The Unfortunate Truth has a rolling list of contributors, whose views are not related to outside organizations or their independent contracts. TUT was founded in 2022 by creator journalist Rahim Jessani, who serves as the editor-in-chief. Jessani’s views or opinion pieces on TUT are not associated with his work as a social media consultant and digital media journalist.
