Who we are, and who pays for it.

A fact-checker is only as good as its credibility, and credibility depends on being open about money, ownership, and method. Everything below is stated as fact, dated where a date matters, and changes the day the facts do — the same standard we hold the people we check to.

Ownership

The Baseline is owned, published and edited by Cory Hepler. It is not owned by, operated by, or financially controlled by any political party, campaign, candidate, PAC, company, or government body. Any change in ownership or control will be disclosed on this page before it takes effect.

Legal status

The Baseline is published by an individual. It is not a corporation or a nonprofit, it has no board, and it is not a registered political committee. If it incorporates, takes on partners, or seeks nonprofit status, that will be stated here first.

Funding, as of September 24, 2026

The Baseline is paid for entirely by its owner. It has no sponsors, no advertisers, no grants, no investors, and no donors, and there is no donation channel — which is why nothing on this site asks you for money. The advertise page describes placements we would sell under a labeling rule; as of the date above, none has been sold.

If any of that changes, the funder is named here — who, how much, for what placement, and when — before their money buys anything. No funder, at any level, gets to see, approve, or kill a check before publication, and where a funder has a stake in a topic we cover, the relationship is disclosed on the check itself.

Non-partisan method pledge

We do not write for a side, and we do not pick an audience by its politics. Our method is non-partisan: one fixed verdict scale and one sourcing standard for every claim, whoever said it. A fact-checker that only ever finds one side wrong isn't checking; it's campaigning. The automated desk is also capped per speaker each day, so the record cannot quietly become one politician's record.

How we make verdicts

An automated desk finds claims by tracked public figures, gathers independent sources, and publishes a check only when it clears a fixed gate: a named public figure, at least two independent sources it actually cites, a confidence floor, a daily cap, and a daily limit per speaker so one politician cannot fill the record. Every automated check is labeled as such until the editor, Cory Hepler, has read it, and the editor can edit or unpublish any check in one click. The full process is on our methodology page.

Editor review, counted live

Of 117 published checks, 36 have been read by the editor: 24 were published by hand and 12 automated checks have been reviewed since publication. 81 automated checks are still awaiting the editor's review, the oldest published September 6, 2026; each carries the automated label on its own page until that changes. A label on every check is only honest if the total is too, so this count comes from the database, not from a sentence someone wrote once.

Corrections & accountability

When we get something wrong, we fix it openly and log it — see our corrections policy and its public log. Anyone, including the people we check, can challenge a verdict on the evidence.

Masthead

Cory Hepler

Owner and editor. Reads and can unpublish any check, answers every desk inbox, and writes the corrections log. Publishing since July 2026.

The automated desk

Software the editor runs. It drafts and publishes checks under the gate above and has no editorial judgment of its own; its checks carry a visible label until the editor has read them.

There are no other staff, freelancers, or contributors, so there are no other bylines. Checks where the editor has a personal or financial interest in the subject carry a disclosure on the check. Editorial roles and conflict disclosures for anyone who joins will be listed here before their first byline runs.

Questions about funding or governance go to the editor: coryh2014+baseline-hello@gmail.com.