Primary Records and Finding the Original

Report from the record, not from someone's description of the record. That one habit will save you from more mistakes than any other skill in this course.

Here is how errors spread. A county clerk presents a budget showing a 3 percent increase in general fund spending. A reporter writes it up as "a 3 percent increase." A blog quotes the reporter and drops "general fund," so now the whole budget grew 3 percent. A social media post rounds that to "taxes going up again." By the fourth retelling the number is wrong, the subject is wrong, and the original document is still sitting on the county website where anyone could have read it.

Primary, secondary, tertiary

A primary source is the thing itself. A secondary source is someone else's account of it. Tertiary sources summarize the summaries.

A firsthand witness is also a primary source for what they saw. A neighbor who watched the fire start is primary. A neighbor who heard about it from the first neighbor is not.

Primary doesn't mean correct. Agencies make typos. Witnesses misremember. But a primary source is the thing everyone else is arguing about, so you need to have read it yourself.

How to go upstream

Going upstream means following a claim back one step at a time until you hit the source. It sounds tedious. It usually takes 20 minutes.

1. Ask "who says?" Every claim came from somewhere. Find the attribution in the piece you're reading. If there isn't one, that's a warning sign.
2. Follow the link or the name. If the article links a source, open it. If it names an agency or report, search for that report by title on the agency's own site.
3. Check the date. Old documents get recirculated as new. A 2019 audit finding showing up in 2026 posts may have been fixed years ago.
4. Read the actual passage. Find the sentence or table row that supposedly supports the claim. Read the paragraphs around it. Context changes meaning more often than you'd think.
5. Note what's missing. If the original says "up to 40 jobs" and the retelling says "40 jobs," you've found the error.

Where common records live

Learn these before you need them. Most are free and online.

• Agendas, packets and minutes. Posted by the public body, usually on its website. Idaho's open meetings law requires written minutes listing members present, all motions and their outcome, and vote results (Idaho Code 74-205). The packet is where the real information is: staff reports, contracts, bids, maps.
• Budgets and audits. City, county, school district and special district websites. Look for the adopted budget (not the proposed one) and the annual audited financial report.
• Ordinances and codes. Most cities and counties publish their codes online. Read the current version, then check the ordinance that changed it.
• Campaign finance. The Idaho Secretary of State runs the Sunshine portal for state-level reports. Some local races file with the county clerk instead.
• Property records. County assessor and recorder offices. Deeds, ownership, assessed value.
• Business filings. The Secretary of State keeps business entity records: who registered a company, when, and its registered agent.
• Court filings. Complaints, judgments and dockets are records you can read. A complaint is one side's allegations, not a finding of fact. Report it that way.

Idaho's records law defines a public record broadly: any writing about the public's business "regardless of physical form or characteristics" (Idaho Code 74-101). That covers email, text messages about public business, spreadsheets and video, not just paper. When a record isn't posted online, you request it. The next lesson covers how.

Retellings still have a job

Secondary sources are good for finding leads, getting background and learning who the players are. A good news story from three years ago can tell you which report to look for. Just don't cite the retelling for a fact when the original is available. And never copy another outlet's reporting without credit. If they found it first, say so: "first reported by the Valley Courier."

Watch for the circle

Sometimes three outlets all report the same fact, and it feels confirmed. Then you trace each one and find they all cite each other, or all cite the same unnamed post. That's one source repeated three times, which is no confirmation at all.