From investigative reporting to investment research: the context changed, but the discipline of evidence did not

A lead is not a fact.

An expert’s answer is not a conclusion either.

By the “discipline of evidence,” I mean the practice of continuing to ask, before reaching a judgement, where information came from, what it can establish, and whether the conclusion extends beyond what the evidence can support.

The first lesson of my career was not how to make a story more compelling. It was how to determine where the information in front of me had come from, what it could establish, and what remained unverified.

In my previous article, I wrote that the value of interview experience lies not in how many people we have interviewed, but in whether we can recognise what does not fit.

That ability does not come from interview volume alone. Its deeper origin lies in a basic discipline of investigative reporting: do not treat a source’s statement as fact merely because it is delivered with confidence; do not assume that repeated information represents multiple independent pieces of evidence; and do not stop looking for potentially conflicting information simply because one explanation fits what we already believe.

I later moved from investigative reporting into commercial investigations and investment research. The context in which the work was used changed, but the discipline of evidence remained.

An investigation begins by not taking the first lead at face value

Early in my career, I worked in in-depth investigative reporting on Chinese business and financial matters.

A lead was always only the starting point. It might come from an informed source, an internal document, an anomalous data point, or a situation that could not readily be explained by conventional logic.

However specific a lead might sound, it could not immediately be treated as fact.

A source might have experienced an event directly but observed only one part of it. The source might have relevant expertise without direct knowledge of the particular situation. Or the source might, without realising it, simply be repeating someone else’s interpretation.

Even information offered voluntarily still requires verification.

An investigation must continue asking:

Why is this person in a position to know?

Which parts come from direct experience, and which are personal judgement?

Is there another source capable of confirming the information independently?

Is the account consistent with public records, operating data and statements from other relevant parties?

If the information conflicts, does the contradiction arise from the facts themselves, the limits of each person’s observation, or the way the information has been transmitted?

Investigative reporting did not teach me to reject every piece of information.

It taught me not to allow an unverified lead to become a conclusion too early.

From public reporting to investment decisions, the purpose of the questions changed

When I moved into commercial investigations and investment-related research, the purpose and audience of the work changed.

Investigative reporting generally asks which facts can be publicly confirmed and presented in an account intended for a broader audience.

Investment research must answer more specific questions within a limited period:

Do the company’s actual operations support its external narrative?

How should the capabilities, integrity and execution record of management be assessed?

Why do customers, suppliers, former employees and competitors describe the same company differently?

Is there sufficient independent evidence to support a particular investment thesis?

Which issues have been reasonably well verified, and which remain matters of bounded judgement?

Commercial investigation is not simply investigative reporting applied to a different subject.

It operates under confidentiality requirements, project deadlines, source-protection obligations and fixed decision timelines. Its purpose is not to create a public event or to search for negative information that will attract attention.

Its purpose is to help a client assess the uncertainty surrounding a particular investment or business decision.

What I carried from investigative reporting into investment research was not a journalistic form of storytelling.

It was the habit of questioning the origins of evidence.

Independent verification is not an exercise in opposing management

Independent research sometimes finds that a company’s external narrative does not fully align with information obtained from outside the organisation.

That does not mean the research should begin by assuming that management is being dishonest. Nor does it mean that the purpose of independent verification is to uncover negative information.

The same company may look different to its management, employees, customers, suppliers and competitors.

Management understands the company’s overall strategy and objectives, but may not observe how every region, operating process or customer use case functions in practice.

Customers and suppliers have direct transactional experience, but their view may be limited to a particular product, period or commercial relationship.

The existence of these differences does not, by itself, prove that any party is at fault.

The purpose of independent verification is to understand why the differences exist, identify the factual basis of each account, and determine which explanation is supported by stronger independent evidence.

It does not replace financial, legal, intellectual-property or technical due diligence. Nor is it intended to overturn the work of other professional advisers.

It adds a different type of evidence: primary information obtained from people involved in actual operations, relationships across the value chain, and the external market.

When this evidence is consistent with formal documentation, the investment judgement becomes more robust.

When the two conflict, the value of the research lies in identifying where the conflict occurs, what may explain it, and what should be verified next.

What remains constant is tracing how evidence was formed

In investment research, the credibility of a piece of information cannot be determined solely by who said it.

A more important question is how that information was formed.

A former employee’s assessment of management may be based on years of direct working experience. It may also be influenced by the circumstances of that person’s departure.

An industry expert’s estimate of market size may be based on the expert’s own operating data. It may instead repeat an industry forecast that has already circulated widely.

A supplier’s assessment of a target company may reflect genuine transactional experience, but only within one region, one product line or one period of cooperation.

All of these accounts may be valuable, but they do not have the same evidential value.

The researcher must assess each source’s position of observation, relevant period, potential interests and underlying information base. The interview evidence must then be cross-checked against other interviews, public records and industry data.

The process rarely follows a straight line:

Interview → Cross-check → Identify contradictions → Follow-up interviews → Desk research → Independent assessment

This is not a linear process performed only once.

It can be understood as one concrete iteration of the verification cycle described in the previous article. If an independent assessment reveals a new contradiction, the research returns to the hypothesis, interview and verification stages.

The process continues until the available evidence is sufficient to support a judgement with clearly stated boundaries.

Sometimes the first interview provides not an answer, but a question that needs to be redefined.

Sometimes agreement among several interviewees does not strengthen a conclusion. Instead, it indicates that we should investigate whether they are all relying on the same underlying source.

At other times, what changes the judgement is not the amount of new information obtained, but the recognition that the existing pieces of information cannot all be true at the same time.

Caution is not ambiguity; it is matching the conclusion to the strength of the evidence

Investment research is often expected to provide a clear answer.

The responsibility of independent research, however, is not to package every issue as a definitive conclusion. It is to distinguish accurately among different levels of evidence.

Which facts have been corroborated by multiple independent sources?

Which assessments currently depend on only one source?

Which widely repeated claims may ultimately originate from the same information source?

Which matters cannot presently be verified independently because of limitations involving time, access or confidentiality?

We therefore state the boundaries of the evidence explicitly in our reports and use different formulations according to the evidential position:

“Our current assessment leans toward the view that…” means that the available evidence supports a directional judgement, while material limitations still need to be stated.

“The information currently available supports…” means that reasonably clear evidence supports the assessment, but does not suggest that every possible explanation has been exhausted.

“We are currently unable to verify… independently” means that sufficient independent evidence has not been obtained and that the relevant claim cannot be treated as an established fact.

This caution is not an avoidance of judgement.

Caution does not mean making a conclusion vague. It means matching the degree of certainty in the conclusion to the strength of the evidence.

Neither presenting insufficiently verified information as established fact nor refusing to make any judgement in order to appear cautious will help an investor make a better decision.

The profession changed, but the way I assess information did not begin again from zero

As my work moved from investigative reporting to commercial investigations and then to independent research for institutional investors, the industries, clients and decision-making questions I encountered continued to change.

Certain basic requirements did not.

Do not turn a lead directly into a fact.

Do not present an opinion as evidence.

Do not use repetition as a substitute for source independence.

Do not avoid information that conflicts with an existing judgement.

And do not allow a conclusion to extend beyond what the evidence can support.

Investigative reporting asks which facts can be publicly confirmed.

Investment research asks which evidence is sufficient to support a decision.

The two operate in different contexts, but they depend on the same basic discipline: before forming a conclusion, understand how the information was produced.

Later, when I established an independent research practice under the FUWA LAB name, this discipline of evidence, developed over many years, naturally became the foundation of the firm’s research methodology.

This does not mean transferring investigative reporting directly into commercial due diligence.

It means retaining its requirements concerning source origins, cross-verification and evidential boundaries, and adapting them to confidential environments, limited research periods and specific investment questions.

What we provide is not a larger volume of undifferentiated information.

Nor do we use a handful of expert interviews to make an investment decision on the client’s behalf.

Our role is to trace the origins of information, identify the untested assumptions within it, and use interviews, cross-checking and desk research to help clients understand:

Which assessments are already supported by independent evidence.

Which conclusions still have clearly defined limitations.

And what should be verified next.