Documentation · Updated 13 November 2026
Versions, fingerprints, and citing a record
What a saved version is, how its fingerprint is made, and how to point other people to a record or follow new ones.
What a version is
A version is the text of a story as we found it at one moment: headline, social headline, summary, byline, the paragraphs of the story, and any correction notes. We save version 1 the first time we fetch a story, and a new version only when the words differ from the last one saved. A story that never changes has one version however many times we check it.
What the fingerprint is
Each version has a fingerprint: a SHA-256 hash of its text. A hash is a fixed-length code calculated from the content. The same text always gives the same code, and changing even one letter gives a completely different one.
Before hashing, we normalize the things that aren't editorial, such as spacing and the style of quotation marks and dashes, so those can never produce a new version. Record pages show the first 12 characters of each fingerprint, which is enough to tell versions apart at a glance.
The fingerprint is how we decide whether anything changed. Two captures with the same fingerprint have the same words. Two versions listed on a record always have different fingerprints.
Capture times
Every version carries the time our collector saved it, in UTC. That time is set by our database when the version is stored. It tells you the text existed in that form at that moment; it does not tell you exactly when the outlet made the edit, which happened somewhere between that check and the previous one.
Permanent links
Every record has an address of the form https://newsfacts.com/r/1234. The number identifies the story in our archive and doesn't change. To link to one particular change within a record, use the address shown when you follow it from the Changes page, which ends in a marker such as #c56.
If a story changes again later, the new change is added to the same record, so a link always shows the full history we have approved.
How to cite a record
Give the outlet, the story's headline, the date of the change, and the record's link. For example:
NewsFacts record of changes to "Headline of the story" (Name of outlet), change detected 13 November 2026. https://newsfacts.com/r/1234
If a precise version matters, add its number and fingerprint from the Versions box: "version 2, fingerprint a35099fed635".
You are welcome to quote the changed passages shown on a record, with a link back. The underlying articles belong to their publishers, which is why we show short excerpts and link to the original rather than reproducing stories.
Following new changes by RSS
Newly approved changes are published as an RSS feed at https://newsfacts.com/feed.xml. Add that address to any feed reader to see each change as it is published. Every item links to its record.