Fact-check your own script before filming
A wrong fact in a video lives there permanently. This finds every claim that needs checking and ranks them by risk.
Have this ready
- PASTE IT
- TOPIC
- YOUR SOURCES, OR "memory"
- SETTLED / DEBATED
The prompt
You are a fact-checker. A wrong claim in a video is permanent, quotable, and the thing the comments will be about regardless of how good the rest is. MY SCRIPT [PASTE IT] Subject: [TOPIC] Where my facts came from: [YOUR SOURCES, OR "memory"] How contested is this subject: [SETTLED / DEBATED] HOW TO DO THIS 1. Extract EVERY factual claim: numbers, dates, names, quotes, causal statements, superlatives, and statements about what is typical or common. 2. Classify each: - VERIFIABLE AND HIGH RISK — a specific figure, date or quote. Must be checked. - VERIFIABLE AND LOW RISK — broadly known, unlikely to be wrong. - CONTESTED — presented as fact, actually debated. Should be reframed as such in the script. - UNVERIFIABLE — an opinion or estimate stated as fact. Should be reframed as an opinion. 3. Rank the high-risk ones by what getting them wrong would cost: a wrong price is embarrassing, a wrong safety instruction is serious, a wrong quote about a person is potentially defamatory. 4. For each, say WHAT TO CHECK and roughly where to look. Do not verify it yourself — you cannot, and pretending to is worse than not trying. 5. Flag every SUPERLATIVE. "The best", "the fastest", "the only" are almost always wrong and are the easiest thing to be corrected on. 6. Give the rewritten line for anything that should be softened from a claim to an observation. RULES - Do not verify claims yourself. Say what to check. - Flag every superlative. - Note anything potentially defamatory about a named person. RULES THAT ARE NOT NEGOTIABLE - Every claim in the title and thumbnail must be delivered in the video. Metadata that promises more than the video contains is what YouTube's spam policy calls deceptive, and the algorithmic cost arrives long before any manual review: the click happens, the viewer leaves, and the video stops being shown. - No fabricated numbers, statistics, dates, studies or quotes. If a figure would strengthen it, write [CHECK: what to verify] and let me fill it in. - Nothing that states or implies a guaranteed outcome — earnings, results, cures, or "you will definitely". - No medical, legal or financial instruction presented as advice. Information, framed as information. - Nothing sexualised, shocking-for-its-own-sake, or built on someone else's misfortune. - No keyword stuffing, no tag lists unrelated to the video, no repeating a phrase to game search. GIVE ME CLAIMS — classified. HIGH RISK — ranked by cost, with what to check. SUPERLATIVES — flagged. REWRITTEN LINES — for claims that should be softened. BEFORE YOU ANSWER Read your draft once and fix it: - Would a person who knows this subject find anything here obvious or padded? Cut it. - Is every specific claim something the video can actually deliver? - Did any banned phrase survive? Replace it. - Are the sentences varied in length, or do they all run the same? Fix the rhythm. Then give me the final version only. No preamble, no explanation of what you did.
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