Readers should be able to reach the underlying data, report or judgement—not only our description of it.
How sources are labelled
Legislation, court findings, official statistics, public inquiries and regulator reports. Authoritative does not mean infallible; methodology and institutional limitations still matter.
Peer-reviewed or university-led research. We look for study design, reproducibility, relevant expertise and whether later work supports or challenges it.
Work by charities, think tanks, professional bodies and investigators with disclosed methods, funding and possible interests.
Documented journalism using named evidence, records or corroborated testimony. Reporting can uncover facts while still requiring independent verification.
Potentially important work not subjected to equivalent public scrutiny. We can link to it and examine it, but its status and unanswered questions must remain visible.
Experience and argument can reveal what datasets miss. They are valuable perspectives, but one account does not establish prevalence or cause.
Difficult evidence
Nothing is excluded for being unsettling.
For subjects including organised child sexual exploitation, Middle Ground will link to inquiries and credible independent work, examine institutional failures, and represent victims with care. We will not suppress relevant evidence—or use individual cases to make claims about an entire ethnic, religious or migrant population that the evidence cannot support.
- Who produced and funded it?
- Is the method visible and appropriate?
- What population and period does it cover?
- Does it distinguish allegation, testimony and established fact?
- What credible evidence challenges it?
- What conclusion would go beyond the data?