Most of what arrives in a newsroom's inbox is written by someone who wants something. A supplement brand wants a study to sound like proof. A crypto project wants a partnership to sound like adoption. A model lab wants a benchmark to sound like a breakthrough. None of that is dishonest on its own. It becomes a problem when a publication repeats the framing without saying how much weight it can bear.
So every article across our titles carries a hype grade. It sits near the top, in plain words, and it answers one question: how strong is the evidence behind the main claim?
The four grades
Strong. The claim rests on a primary source we can point to, such as a peer reviewed study with a real sample, an audited filing, a regulator's own text, or a shipped product we tested. Reasonable people could still disagree about what it means, but not about whether it happened.
Mixed. Part of the story is solid and part is not. A partnership is real but the launch date is a promise. A study exists but it is small, short, or paid for by the company that benefits. We say which part is which.
Thin. The claim comes from one interested party and nothing independent backs it yet. We may still cover it, because readers are searching for it, but the grade tells them to hold their judgement.
Marketing. The "news" is a press release with numbers no one outside the company can check. We either skip it or write about the release itself, with the grade making the situation obvious.
Why a grade and not a warning label
Warnings get skipped. A grade forces the reporter to make a decision and forces the editor to defend it. It also changes the reporting. When you know you will have to write "thin" under a headline, you tend to make one more call to see if it can become "mixed".
The grade is not a judgement of the company or the person. Plenty of good products launch with thin evidence. The grade describes the evidence available on the day of publication, which is why the date sits next to it.
What it costs us
Some stories that would do well in search get published later than competitors, or not at all, because we could not get past "marketing". We have decided that is the right trade. A reader who learns that our health title will not repeat a study without reading it is a reader who comes back.
How to read it
If you only have ten seconds, read the headline, the date and the grade. If the grade is "strong", act on it the way you would act on any well sourced report. If it is "thin" or "marketing", treat the story as a signal that something is being pushed, and wait for the next one.