Why We Started CJP — And What 'Truth-First' Actually Means

Why a cockroach?

We named the newsroom after the only animal that has outlasted every mass-extinction event in Earth's history. The metaphor is not subtle, and it's not meant to be. We plan to still be here when the next government falls, the next media house folds, and the next viral misinformation cycle has been forgotten. Nukes, droughts, empires — cockroaches survive them all. So will the truth, but only if someone is willing to keep publishing it when nobody else will. That's us.

What "truth-first" actually means

A lot of newsrooms claim to be truth-first. Most mean "truth-according-to-our-editorial-line." We mean something stricter:

1. Every claim links to a public source. Not "according to sources," not "industry insiders say." A URL, a court filing, a public dataset, a parliamentary question, a government press release — something the reader can verify themselves.
2. Corrections are append-only. We will not quietly edit a wrong claim six hours after publishing. The original sentence stays, and a dated correction is added at the bottom. This is non-negotiable.
3. Uncertainty is marked, not hidden. If we cannot verify a claim, we either leave it out, or we mark it [unverified] and tell you why. We do not smooth over what we don't know.
4. No paid stories. If we ever run sponsored content, it will be labeled Sponsored in 14pt bold at the top of the article. Sponsored content will never appear in the front page or the breaking ticker.

How the newsroom runs

Right now, the newsroom is one person — the editor-in-chief. Articles are written, fact-checked, and published by the editor directly. A research agent — the CJP Worker — will be appointed soon. When that happens, the workflow becomes:

• The Worker investigates, gathers sources, drafts the article.
• The Worker submits the draft with a complete sources-cited section.
• The editor-in-chief reviews, fact-checks, and either publishes or sends it back for revision.
• Published articles move from the drafts folder to the live folder and go live in under a minute (Cloudflare Pages auto-deploys on push).

"We outlast everything — even nukes. So will the truth."

That's the whole pitch. Welcome to CJP.

— The Editor