Journalist Use Guide
How to use the archive without overstating it.
This page is for reporters, editors, writers, student journalists, and researchers who want to use Campus Evidence Lab as a source-backed starting point for reporting or analysis.
Who This Is For
Use this guide if you are investigating a school, checking whether public records already exist, building a narrow higher-education or campus civil-rights story, or looking for linked primary sources before requesting comment.
Fast Start Paths
- One school
- Start in Schools, open the dossier, then move from the timeline into the linked event and source pages.
- One public record
- Start in Events, filter by school, community, category, source type, or date, then open the source page before citing the record.
- One reproducible packet
- Use the Research Workspace to export a local markdown or JSON packet tied to the current snapshot hash.
How To Use The Archive
- Start in Events to search summaries, categories, communities, source types, and dates.
- Open a school page from the matching event to inspect a timeline of public records and institutional response fields.
- Open the linked source page to inspect the source URL, publisher, source type, and audit surface.
- Use Downloads if you need JSON or CSV exports for a narrow reporting question.
- Use the briefs index for project-written analysis memos tied to explicit dataset snapshots.
What The Archive Can Support
- Finding whether a school already has public-source documentation in the archive.
- Tracing a record back to a public source URL.
- Describing documentation patterns in the current snapshot.
- Building a reporting list of schools, source types, dates, or public agency actions that merit follow-up.
What Requires Primary-Source Or Institutional Follow-Up
- Legal conclusions, institutional intent, or disputed facts.
- Any claim about incident prevalence or comparative campus safety.
- Private complaints, unreported incidents, or information not contained in the linked public material.
- Claims that a school’s count means it is better, worse, safer, or more dangerous than another school.
Before Publication Checklist
- Cite the current snapshot and, when relevant, the specific brief or event page.
- Read the linked source page and, where possible, the underlying source URL.
- Check the methodology and research guide for use limits.
- Avoid converting count patterns into school judgments or safety language.
- Request institutional comment when your story makes claims beyond what the public record alone can establish.
Common Mistakes To Avoid
- Treating record counts as rankings.
- Assuming a low count means fewer underlying incidents.
- Assuming a high count means more underlying hostility rather than stronger public documentation, more discoverable sources, or broader public reporting.
- Citing Campus Evidence Lab instead of the underlying source when a direct source is available.