Saturday morning, US Central Command announced — in a post on X, this war's official gazette — that it had "permanently disabled" two Iranian oil tankers and "completely destroyed" a third, after IRGC ballistic missiles were fired at an American aircraft carrier and a destroyer. That's your one sentence of background, and notice something about it: every fact in it comes from exactly one source, CENTCOM. Which means every newsroom on earth spent Saturday deciding how much of the Pentagon's story to repeat as the truth. You can rank them by trust level. So we did. * Maximum trust: Bloomberg. "US Strikes Three Iranian Tankers in Retaliation for IRGC Attacks." No "says," no "after," no chaperone anywhere in the sentence. "In retaliation" — the Iranian attack happened, the motive is established, case closed. The terminal doesn't do ambiguity. It does settlements. * Fox News, one notch down, and only technically: "US forces target 3 Iranian oil tankers in response to IRGC missile attack." Same construction — "in response to" files the Iranian attack as a fact of nature. Fox's live blog then handed the mic to CENTCOM's commander Brad Cooper for the poster line: "If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic cost -- taking out three of yours." Great quote. Also the Pentagon grading its own homework, printed as the report card. * NBC News split the difference, and you can see the seam: "U.S. strikes 3 Iranian oil tankers after Iran targets Navy warships, CENTCOM says." The American strikes: fact. Iran targeting warships: also reads as fact. And then "CENTCOM says" sprints into the end of the sentence like a lawyer arriving after the contract's been signed — technically covering everything, actually covering nothing. * AP put the hedge exactly where it belongs: "US military hits 3 Iranian oil tankers after saying Navy warships were targeted with missiles." Read it again — after SAYING. The strikes are treated as fact; the justification is treated as a claim, because that's what it is: one source, no independent verification, from a military with every incentive to narrate its own week favorably. That's not the wire being rude to the Navy. That's what attribution is FOR. * And CNN quarantined the entire event: "US military says three Iranian tankers struck in Gulf." Even the strikes live inside "says." Arguably one hedge too many — CNN itself verified audio of a US aircraft warning the tanker's crew, "I am preparing to fire at your stern. You have 10 minutes" — but if a newsroom is going to err, this is the direction to err in. * Honorable mention: Euronews, filing before CENTCOM had even posted, went with "Iranian media report US strike on Iranian oil tanker near Kharg Island." A headline sourced to Tehran's press — which is what you write when the other side is the only one talking. Funny how easy attribution is when it's not your own government doing the claiming. * If this feels familiar, it's because we've spent the whole week on it. Monday, a US bomb hit a wedding in Kuhestak and NBC's headline gave the dead an "Iran says" chaperone while American strikes roamed headline-land unescorted. Thursday, RT couldn't locate the pilot of a Russian drone parked in the SBU's lobby. The rule we keep asking for was never "distrust the Pentagon" or "trust it." It's that the chaperone should follow the evidence, not the passport. On Saturday, AP and CNN actually did that. Bloomberg and Fox printed the press release in better fonts.