Join free

All stories

Benicia · Schools · Courts · Wed Sep 30

Grade D, score 53 of 100 · open the full fact check No independent confirmation yet

“A Bay Area Teacher Was Acquitted of Sexual Abuse. He’s on Trial Again for New Allegations”

Headline as KQED wrote it

A Bay Area Teacher Was Acquitted of Sexual Abuse. He’s on Trial Again for New Allegations

What the reporting says

KQED reports: “Editor’s Note: This story includes details of alleged sexual misconduct against minors. For the second time in his teaching career, a former Bay Area elementary teacher is on trial over allegations that he sexually abused his students. Matthew Shelton, 44, faces 12 felony counts of lewd acts on four children during his tenure at the Benicia Unified School District.”

Read it at KQED

The full fact check1 outlet · Grade D
> THE MARTINEZ WIRE ▌SOURCE CHECK · SEP 30, 2026D53 / 100

Grade D · score 53/100

The story links no document and names six people or agencies on the record.

Checked Wed Sep 30, 2:53 PM · 1 of 1 page read

Sources checked

No independent confirmation found yet.

The reporting

  1. “A Bay Area Teacher Was Acquitted of Sexual Abuse. He’s on Trial Again for New Allegations”KQED

coverage1 outlet

1 newsroom

KQED

News report · Wed Sep 30, 4:00 AM

Source grade D53/100

“A Bay Area Teacher Was Acquitted of Sexual Abuse. He’s on Trial Again for New Allegations”

Editor’s Note: This story includes details of alleged sexual misconduct against minors. For the second time in his teaching career, a former Bay Area elementary teacher is on trial over allegations that he sexually abused his students. Matthew Shelton, 44, faces 12 felony counts of lewd acts on four children during his tenure at the Benicia Unified School District.

The opening, as KQED wrote it

0 documents linked18 quotes13 of 18 paragraphs say where facts came from

Read the full story at KQED

How this was graded26.1 + 0 + 10 + 7 = 43.1 of 80 → 53/100 · Grade D
26.1
Sourcing · of 45
0
Corroboration · of 15
10
Headline · of 10
7
Transparency · of 10

Left out: Record match (nothing of that kind to count).

Comments

Comments go up at once and are checked automatically: no links but public records, no phone numbers, emails or street addresses, nothing hateful or threatening. Three reports from readers take a comment down. Leave the name empty to post as Reader and a short code.

    No comments yet.

    How the grading works

    The short version

    The Wire grades each article from what the page itself shows: whether its facts say where they came from, the public documents it links, the other outlets and sources that confirm the same story, whether its facts match the Wire's own public records, a calm headline, and a clear byline and date. The story takes its best-sourced telling's grade. The grade describes the page, never the people in it.

    The formulaGrade = 100 × points ÷ possibleA 85 · B 70 · C 55 · D 40

    Grade = 100 × points ÷ possibleeach article · 0 to 100

    Story = its best tellingA 85 · B 70 · C 55 · D 40 · F below 40

    45
    Sourcing · 25 for the share of facts that say where they came from, 0, 7 or 12 for none, one or two or more public documents linked, 0 to 8 for the people and agencies named on the record
    15
    Corroboration · 8 or 12 for one or two or more other outlets or sources confirming it, 3 more when one is official; 8 for a telling alone that links two or more documents
    20
    Record match · 20 × the key facts confirmed or matching the Wire's records ÷ the facts checked; left out when none could be checked
    10
    Headline · less for a question, capitals, an exclamation mark, a teaser or heated words
    10
    Transparency · a byline, a date, an update or correction note, the outlet's identity, the kind labelled
    This story's arithmeticone article graded
    OutletSCRHTScore
    KQED26.10–10753

    26.1 + 0 + 10 + 7 = 43.1 of 80 → 53/100 · Grade D

    S sourcing · C corroboration · R record match · H headline · T transparency. A dash is a part left out.

    How it is checked6 rules
    • Every input is read by rules from the page itself; the arithmetic is shown for every article.
    • An article that names no source, links no document and names no one on the record says "No sources cited", and its grade is at most D.
    • Where the Wire's own records hold the fact (a vote, a meeting, an amount, a call, a listing), the story and the record are set side by side; a vote the record tells differently holds the grade at most at D.
    • An agency's own release is the record itself and is not graded; an outlet that prints it as its story counts once.
    • Each story's key facts are checked for independent confirmation: first by rules against the Wire's records and the agencies' own releases, then each morning by research. A confirmation counts only when the Wire read the source's page itself and found the sentence on it; a government page, a public record or another newsroom's own reporting, never a copy of the story or a social post. A source that tells a fact differently is shown beside the story.
    • A page the Wire cannot read is never guessed at: it shows only its own headline, quoted, and is not graded.
    Sources1 records
    1. News reportWed Sep 30KQEDRead