Verifying an Interview Subject's Own Claims
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A subject speaking about their own experience is a genuine primary source, but that does not mean every claim they make should pass unchecked into a finished piece, since people misremember dates, conflate similar events, and occasionally shade a story in their own favour without any real intent to deceive anyone.
Treating a subject's account as a starting point for verification, rather than as an automatic endpoint in itself, protects both the subject and the writer, and it is a genuine form of respect, not suspicion, to check a claim carefully before presenting it to readers as established fact rather than personal recollection.
Where a claim genuinely cannot be verified through any other means, presenting it clearly as the subject's own account, rather than as confirmed fact, keeps the finished piece honest without ever requiring the writer to accuse anyone of anything at all, which is exactly the point of the whole exercise.