http://vimeo.com/2966602

http://blog.storyful.com/2012/10/09/find-that-fireball-when-journalist-turns-stalker/#.Un8ZMfk4Sm5

THE VERIFICATION HANDBOOKAssignment for Wednesday

VerificationAn important component of curation

What to consider

• How credible is the information?• How important is it to your audience?• And how urgent is the situation?

How to verify?

Check things out: Twitter bio

• Does the source provide a name, picture, bio and any  links to their own blog, identity, professional occupation, etc., on their page?

• If no name, does searching for this name on Google, Facebook or LinkedIn provide any further clues?

Check things out: tweets

• Is this a new Twitter handle with only a few tweets? If so, be wary.

• The more tweets, the better able you can scrutinize evidence of political bias, misinformation.

Check things out: tweets

• Is this a one-issue tweeter?  • Behind every tweeter should be a

personality. A tweet history consumed with one or two issues may be suspect.  

Check things out: followers

• Does the source have a large following? If there are only a few, are any of the followers know and credible sources?

• How many lists has this Twitter handle been added to.

• How many Twitter users does the Twitter handle follow? Are these known and credible sources?

Check this out

Retweets: • What type of content? • Retweeted by known and credible sources?

Location: • Can the source's geographic location be

ascertained? Are they nearby the unfolding events? • Examine during which periods of the day/night the

source tweets the most. This may provide an indication as to the person's time zone.

Check this out

Timing: • Does the source appear to be tweeting in near real-

time? Or are there considerable delays? • Does anything appear unusual about the timing of

the person's tweets?

Authenticate

• Social authentication: If you're still unsure about the source's reliability, use your own social network -- Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn -- to find out if anyone in your network know about the source's reliability.

• Media authentication: Is the source quoted by trusted media outlets?

Engage the source

• Tweet them back and ask them for further information. NPR's Andy Carvin has employed this technique particularly well. For example, you can tweet back and ask for the source of the report and for any available pictures, videos, etc.

• Place the burden of proof on the source.

Corroboration

• Official: Do police, firefighters, traffic cameras or any other official sources of information back up the claim?

• Social: Are other social network users posting similar, independent reports from the same location? If a tornado really touched down in a city of 8 million people, for example,  there ought to be more than one photo of it.

AP on verification

• There are a number of challenges that face journalists handling UGC, most notably the issue of verification. Most broadly, do we know exactly what we are seeing, and how we have determined this? We should seek to tell the story surrounding each piece of video and audio and every photo we acquire with the level of accuracy people expect from the AP. This means tapping into our considerable knowledge base, drawing on the expertise of AP staff around the world.

AP on verification

• Securing access to content can often be a challenge, especially in a breaking news situation when video or photos have been re-posted to social networks. You must always strive to seek the original source of the media you are seeking to acquire. Once that content owner has been identified, ask for permission to use the material, following all the established protocols the AP has in place.

AP on verification

• You must always strive to seek the original source of the media you are seeking to acquire. Once that content owner has been identified, ask for permission to use the material, following all the established protocols the AP has in place.

AP on verification

• When publishing UGC, you should make every effort to give due credit to the person who has created that content. Use the person’s name if he or she is happy for you to do so, or a username (from a social network or platform) if it is applicable or the preference of the individual.

• “In real-time journalism, declaring what you won’t report can be just as important as what you will.”

• – Craig Silverman

Determine importance

• How important is the information to the news that you’re covering? Is it a fundamental claim (“There was a shooting at the fireworks tonight”) or an incidental fact (There must have been 5,000 people at the fireworks tonight”)?

Determine importance

• How important is the story to your general newsgathering mission? Is the overall story something important enough to consider taking a risk? Or is it a minor story with little public impact or interest?

Determine importance

• What are the risks and rewards of publishing this information? 

• If it turns out to be wrong, what damage would your report have caused? If it’s true and you withhold it, how underinformed would your readers be?

How urgent?

• What damage could be caused by waiting?

• Is there a benefit to waiting?

• If you are dealing with a report of an alleged ongoing public safety incident, you must consider the value of alerting others to the potential danger as soon as possible.

Sources

• Patrick Meier• Poynter• Associated Press

Additional readings for next week.

• Poynter on restraint

• Craig Silverman on verification

• The World's Best Twitter Account