Issue 18 out now · Diesel 199.2p, down 0.1p on last week · Petrol 174.1p, down 0.5p on last week
Latest issueFuel inflation at 31.9% piles cost pressure on freight operatorsRead issue 18
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Sourcing & fact-checking

THRIVE reports from primary sources wherever one exists and links every claim back to where it came from. This is the standard we hold ourselves to.

Primary sources first

We go to the primary source wherever one exists - the regulator, the manufacturer, the operator, the official dataset or the company itself. We do not rewrite other outlets' reporting and pass it off as our own. Where a story rests on a vendor's own research or figures, we cite the vendor directly and say so in the story, so you know exactly whose numbers you are reading.

Every claim is linked

Each factual claim in an issue carries an inline link to the source that supports it. If a claim cannot be linked to a primary source, we hold it until it can be. Figures, quotes and dates are taken from the source, not paraphrased into something the source does not say.

How stories are researched and written

THRIVE's news stories are produced by an AI newsroom that a human publisher runs, and the process is designed so that nothing reaches the page unless a document supports it.

  • Research. A research model reads the source page and the documents it points to - the release, the report, the regulator's notice - and records each fact with the exact passage that supports it, who made the claim, and any condition attached to it. A fact with no passage in a captured document is dropped before writing begins. If the central event cannot be established from the documents, no story is written.
  • Writing. A writer model works only from those recorded facts. It cannot browse, and nothing it might "know" counts as a fact. Where the source supports a narrower statement, the narrower statement is what we print. Where a story relies on another publication's reporting, that publication is named and linked where its material starts.
  • Independent review. A separate reviewer model, given the finished article and the captured source text, checks every assertion, quotation, number and attribution against the document and names anything unsupported, misattributed or overstated. A story that fails is revised once from the same evidence and reviewed again; if it still fails, it does not publish.
  • Code checks. Code confirms that every quotation matches the source word for word and that every fact the article relies on exists in the evidence. A story that fails these checks stops automatically and cannot publish on its own; only the publisher can release it, after reading it, and that decision is recorded with the story.
  • THRIVE's own figures. Where it answers a reader's obvious next question, a story may add one of THRIVE's own verified figures - a van's listing in our van database, the latest government fuel price we track, or our earlier story on the same subject - dated and credited to THRIVE, and checked like every other fact. It is never offered where the source already gives a figure of the same kind.
  • Press releases. Some announcements, such as appointments, are published in full as the organisation issued them, under the byline "Press release", with the organisation named and its release linked. They are the organisation's own words, not THRIVE reporting: we confirm that the release came from the organisation named, and we do not rewrite it.
  • Publication. Routine, fully supported stories publish automatically during the working day. Stories that are sensitive - allegations, legal or tax interpretation, safety, disputed figures - or that leave a material question unresolved wait for the publisher, who can publish, instruct changes, send the story back for more research, or reject it. The publisher can edit any story after publication, and the edited version stands.

The weekly briefing and the record

  • The Tuesday briefing is assembled from the week's published stories on a fixed schedule. The publisher has a review window before every send and can amend, hold or pull any story.
  • Every story keeps its research record: the facts it was written from, the passages that support them, the reviewer's findings and the code checks, so a challenged claim can be traced to its source in minutes.
  • Stories that fail sourcing or accuracy checks are held or dropped, not softened.
  • If an organisation we have named challenges a claim, that claim is marked as under review while we check it - and unpublished if the challenge cannot be resolved promptly. Write to hello@thrivefleet.co.uk.

Imagery

Article images are original editorial artwork generated for THRIVE. We do not republish third-party press or stock photographs. Artwork is illustrative and is never presented as documentary photography of a specific real event, vehicle or person.

When we get it wrong

We correct material errors openly and promptly. See our corrections policy for how that works and the public record of any corrections issued.

Last updated 25 September 2026.