Vetting

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Broadly, vetting is a process of examination and evaluation. Specifically, vetting often refers to performing a background check on someone before offering them employment. In addition, in intelligence gathering, assets are vetted to determine their usefulness.

1 Origin
2 Political selection
3 Media
4 Software
5 Finance
6 References
7 See also

[edit] Origin

To vet was originally a horse-racing term, referring to the requirement that a horse be checked for health and soundness by a veterinarian before being allowed to race. Thus, it has taken the general meaning "to check".

[edit] Political selection

A party's presidential nominee must choose a vice-presidential candidate to accompany him or her on the ticket. Prospective vice-presidential candidates must undergo thorough evaluation by a team of advisers acting on behalf of the nominee.^[1] In later stages of the vetting process, the team will examine such items as a prospective vice-presidential candidate's finances, personal conduct, and previous coverage in the media.^[1]

Also, people in the show The West Wing get vetted, from time to time.

[edit] Media

In the journalism field, newspaper, periodical, and television news articles or stories may be vetted by fact-checkers, whose job it is to check whether factual assertions made in news copy are correct. However, fact-checking is a time-consuming and costly process, so stories in daily publications are typically not fact-checked. Reporters are expected to check their own writing, sometimes with the aid of an in-house reference library. Information which is verified by two independent sources is commonly stated as fact.

In book publishing, the duty of fact-checking commonly falls to copy editors.

Even when published or televised material is not specifically fact-checked, it is often vetted by a company's legal department to avoid committing slander or libel.

[edit] Software

Vetting is also a reference to software development. The process of vetting code refers to ensuring a build of software meets a set of very high level requirements before the build is passed to the quality assurance environment for further testing.