How newsrooms can prove a story, photo or video is really theirs

To prove a story is really yours, make your published work checkable at the source. Many newsrooms now attach C2PA Content Credentials to photos, publish their standards and corrections policies, and take part in the Journalism Trust Initiative, which certifies how a newsroom works. Fakes still travel as screenshots, cropped clips and impersonated accounts, where none of that data follows.

The Trust Identity Protocol (TIP) by The AI Lab signs each article, photo, video and correction under the newsroom's verified organization TIP-ID, and reporters can sign their own work under their personal TIP-IDs. Each record shows who published it, when, how it was made (including AI-assisted work, labeled honestly) and a fingerprint. When a fake headline or an altered photo circulates under your name, anyone can check for free that it has no record from you.

Get a free TIP-ID How TIP works

The problem

How news gets faked and misused

Where	What goes wrong
Fake screenshots of headlines	Invented headlines in a real outlet's design spread faster than any correction.
Impersonated reporters and hosts	Scam ads and fake accounts use the faces and voices of well-known journalists.
Altered photos and clipped video	Real images are edited or cut to change their meaning.
Republished stories	Syndicated and republished articles are edited by third parties, and readers cannot tell which version is yours.
AI use questions	Readers want to know when AI helped make a story. An honest, signed label answers that.

Every option, honestly

What each option does, and where it stops

These work together. Use more than one, and read the last column for each, including ours.

Option	What it does	Where it stops
C2PA Content Credentials	Attach signed provenance data to images and video from supporting cameras and software.	The data is often stripped by social platforms, and it does not travel with a screenshot.
Journalism Trust Initiative	Certifies a newsroom's editorial processes against a published standard.	Certifies the organization, not each story or photo.
Fact-checking and corrections	Debunks false claims and corrects errors.	Always arrives after a fake has spread.
Platform verification badges	Shows an account is the real outlet on one platform.	Covers one account on one platform, not the content once it is shared.
Trust Identity Protocol (TIP) by The AI Lab	Signs each story, photo, video and correction under the newsroom's and reporter's verified TIP-IDs with an origin label and a fingerprint, checkable by anyone for free.	Does not decide what is true and does not remove fakes. It proves what you published, and that a fake did not come from you.

Step by step

How to put it in place, in order

Get an organization TIP-ID for the newsroom and personal TIP-IDs for reporters and photographers.
Sign each article, photo and video on TIP as you publish, with an honest origin label for any AI-assisted work.
Show the Protected by TIP badge or the record link on each story page.
Sign corrections and updates as new records, so the history stays visible.
Ask syndication partners to keep the record link when they republish.
When a fake circulates, point readers to your signed record and to the absence of one on the fake.

Get a free TIP-ID How TIP works

About TIP

What the Trust Identity Protocol is

The Trust Identity Protocol (TIP) is an open standard from The AI Lab for proving who made a piece of content and whether it has changed. A person or organization is verified once by an accredited Verification Provider and gets a TIP-ID. Each time they sign something, their own device signs it with a post-quantum signature (ML-DSA-65, NIST FIPS 204) after a fresh fingerprint or Face ID, and the TIP Network records the signature, the time, an origin label and a fingerprint of the content. Anyone can check a record for free, with no account.

TIP does not detect deepfakes, does not stop copying and does not decide whether content is true. It proves who stands behind a piece of content and whether a copy matches the original. It is governed in the open by the AI Trust Council, and the specification is public on GitHub. Signed content is called a Verifiable Asset.

Questions

Questions people ask

How can readers check that a news story is real?

Go to the outlet's own website or app rather than a screenshot, and look for provenance data. If the outlet signs its work on the Trust Identity Protocol (TIP) by The AI Lab, the story or photo carries a record link that shows who published it, when and whether it has changed. A fake has no record from the outlet.

Should newsrooms use C2PA or TIP?

They do different jobs and work together. C2PA attaches provenance data inside a file. TIP keeps a signed public record outside the file and matches copies by fingerprint, so it still works when the file has been screenshotted or the data stripped. Many newsrooms will want both.

Can journalism organizations use TIP free?

Yes. Journalism organizations use TIP free for editorial work at any size, and checking any record is free for everyone.

Does TIP say whether a story is true?

No. TIP proves who published a story and whether a copy has been changed. Accuracy is the newsroom's job, and readers judge it by the outlet's record.

What is the Trust Identity Protocol?

The Trust Identity Protocol (TIP) is an open standard from The AI Lab for proving who made a piece of content and whether it has changed. A person or organization is verified once by an accredited Verification Provider and gets a TIP-ID. Each time they sign something, their own device signs it with a post-quantum signature, and the TIP Network records who signed it, when, how it was made (Original Human, AI-Assisted, AI-Generated or Mixed) and a fingerprint of the content. Anyone can check the record for free.

SourcesC2PA, about, Journalism Trust Initiative

Other use cases