Accusations that a student fabricated stories for the Medill News Service have raised questions about the service and its fact-checking procedures.

The service’s approximately 50 reporters — all graduate students — cover a variety of local beats and spend much of the morning reporting, said Mindy Trossman, co-director of the service. Before noon, reporters call the Chicago newsroom and let professors know what they’re working on. The newsroom then prepares a list of stories that they submit to local papers, she said.

After reporters return to the newsroom and write their stories, they usually edit their stories with one of three professors, who then send the stories to local papers.

When editing stories, professors press students for additional information but largely rely on students to tell the truth, Trossman said.

“We ask questions of the students: Are you sure this is what happened? Is this name spelled correctly?” she said. “But we largely rely on students to be honest. Do we go to the courthouse ourselves? No.”

First-year Medill graduate student Emily Hiser said faculty strive to ease the pressure on students.

“It never needs to come to plagiarism or making up sources,” she said. “The faculty and the program is there to support us, and even if your stories are falling apart in 15 different places, they’re there to help us.”

Trossman said professors never forget that reporters are still students.

“We try to impress upon the students the importance of academic integrity,” she said. “It’s the foremost on our minds all the time. In this business, all you have is your credibility.”