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WorldbyFlow for data journalists

A number in a story is a claim with an issuer, and you are the person in the newsroom who knows it. WorldbyFlow surfaces figures with each one's source and interpretation and carries a fact ledger grading provenance on every read, so the numbers you check are already labeled by how well they are grounded.

Written for Works numbers and datasets inside a newsroom.·Runs in the General domain

Start with this one

Where this fits in your week

Data journalism is half analysis and half provenance, and the provenance half is what the newsroom relies on you for. The scans here carry it: the figures with sources and interpretation, the money behind a story with who gains and who pays, polling with method and sponsor named, a graded explanation when a headline statistic moves, and the tests that would prove a popular claim wrong.

Lead scan

By the Numbers

2 credits · in-depth · about 2–4 min

The figures on a topic with each one's source and interpretation stated. The numbers, labeled by where they came from and what they count.

Try it on: a subject you already hold an opinion about, so you can grade the result against what you know.
4 more scans that fit this role

Follow the Money

2 credits

Who is spending, who gains and who pays, mapped from disclosures. The financial structure under a data story.

Try it on Student loan servicing · Hospital pricing · Sports betting

Poll Check

3 credits

A poll read naming pollster, dates, sample, method and sponsor, spread shown rather than averaged. Polling as it was measured.

Try it on Trust in the media · Support for gun control · Public trust in polling

Why It Changed

3 credits

A headline statistic moved and the explanations are flying. Candidate causes graded against the record.

Try it on US life expectancy · The US murder rate · US traffic deaths · Teen depression rates

Falsification Plan

3 credits

The tests that would prove a claim wrong, named before the analysis. The method section, written first.

Try it on Crime rises in hot weather · Minimum wage rises cut jobs · Screen time drives teen depression
A working path

From a first run to a result you can hand over

The order matters. The first read gives you the structure; the next ones fill the parts that are hardest to source by hand.

01

Run By the Numbers on a topic you have already reported

Check the source on each figure against your own. If it names the same issuers and separates the same measurement kinds, it can start the next one.

2 credits
02

Run Why It Changed on the statistic in the news

The candidate explanations graded. The story is usually in which one the record does not support.

3 credits
03

Add a Falsification Plan before you analyze

What would show the claim is wrong and how you would know. Pre-registration for a newsroom.

3 credits
04

Take the sources with you

Export the source list to check each figure at the original, and cite it in the methodology note.

No credits.
The research bill for this path
2 + 3 + 3 = 8 credits · a Standard plan carries 20 a month
What comes back

A result whose claims carry their grades

Sourced, not asserted

Every figure and quote links to where it came from. A claim the scan could not source is marked as such rather than dressed up.

Verified or grounded
Reported or attributed
Contested
Open question

Ready to hand over

Copy the figures and sources as Markdown into the methodology note, so readers can trace each number back.

Built to be argued with

Ask a follow-up question of any result, or run a Red Team pass that tries to break its own conclusions before someone else does. How the grades work →

See one

Research already published in this shape

How AI-Attributed vs Total Corporate Layoffs Are Measured

Read the research →

The AI-attributed layoff figure is a measure of what companies choose to disclose, not an independently audited count of jobs automation replaced, because Challenger's reason field depends entirely on employer language with no external verification step.

How It Works · August 4, 2026 · from the General library
Try it

Run By the Numbers on something you already know

The fastest way to judge the result is to pick a subject you know cold and read it against what you know. If a colleague sent you here with an invitation, the credits land on your account when you sign up.

Start with By the Numbers →Standard plan from $10/mo · 20 credits · all plans
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