Sources & methodology

Source order

When sources disagree, the most direct record normally gets the most weight.

• Official records: City of Burlington, Halton Region, election records, agendas, minutes, votes, budgets and formal decisions.
• Direct sources: candidate websites, organizations speaking for themselves and first-party public statements.
• Local reporting: established reporting for interviews, events, context and developments that are not fully described in a government record.
• Public discussion: useful for finding questions residents are asking, but not treated as polling or proof.

Daily news monitor

An automated monitor checks a defined group of Burlington sources several times a day. It covers City Hall, elections, schools, events, food, recreation, wildlife, transit and regional decisions with a direct Burlington consequence.

The monitor verifies that a destination page exists, removes duplicate and generic navigation links, and can refresh the Latest list. It does not invent a reported fact or automatically turn an unverified social post into an article. Longer stories require direct sources, clear attribution and an editorial review before publication.

A Toronto, Oakville, Hamilton, Ontario or regional story appears only when the Burlington connection is specific and useful. Social posts can identify leads, but the post itself is not proof.

Election candidates

Candidate names and ballot placement come from the City of Burlington's official list. Candidate proposals are summarized as proposals, not as completed outcomes.

Candidate photos are shown only when the identity match is high-confidence. Candidate-supplied sites are checked first, then exact-name local candidate profiles. If the match is uncertain, the site keeps initials rather than guessing.

Local comments checked

A public comment can be useful because it may surface a specific claim that deserves checking. The comment itself is never the evidence.

The factual core is checked against primary records or reliable reporting. Opinion and motive stay labelled as opinion or unverified. For example, proving that someone sits on a board does not prove a conflict of interest; proving that taxes increased does not prove one councillor caused the entire increase.

• Verified: direct evidence supports the factual core.
• Partly verified: evidence supports only part of the claim or important context changes its meaning.
• Personal experience: a resident describes what happened to them; it is attributed but not generalized to everyone.
• Not verified: reliable supporting evidence was not located, so the claim is not presented as fact.

Promises and track records

A past commitment can be tracked when the original statement is specific enough to test and a dated source can be preserved. Outcomes are checked against later public records.

The site separates proposed, approved, funded, started and completed. A council-wide result is not credited to one person without evidence of that person's specific role. No overall “promises kept” percentage is published until there is a sufficiently complete and comparable record.

Images

Images should match the actual person, place or story. A public webpage is not automatically a licence to republish its photography. Burlington News uses original, public-domain, properly licensed or expressly permitted images and keeps the required credit close to the image.

Tourism Burlington media-gallery images are used only within their stated terms and with Tourism Burlington credit. Restaurant and social-media photos are not copied merely because they appear in a listing or post.

Corrections

If something is wrong, outdated or misleadingly summarized, use Give feedback and include the page plus a stronger source. Corrections can be made without pretending the original source never existed.