Craig Silverman, founder of the Regret the Error blog, shares his take on which media outlets got it wrong and which ones got it right – and why – during coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, with tips and takeaways for newsrooms on verification of digital information. Silverman (craig@craigsilverman.ca) is an award-winning journalist and the founder of Regret the Error, a blog that reports on media errors and corrections, and trends regarding accuracy and verification.

1. Don’t Get Fooled Again: Best
Practices for Online Verification
June 13, 2013
Call: 888-398-2342
Access code: 585-200-4058

2. About me
• Editor of Regret the Error blog and Adjunct
Faculty at Poynter. Covering and researching
media errors and verification since 2004.
• Director of Content for content curation and
creation platform Spundge.
• Previously: Managing editor of PBS
MediaShift, editorial director of
OpenFile, columnist for Columbia Journalism
Review, The Globe And Mail, Toronto
Star, BusinessJournalism.org

3. Today’s Agenda
• The principles of verification
• Learn how to:
– Verify social media content
– Verify photos and video
– Evaluate a Web page’s credibility
• Review the types of online fakes
• Build a debunker toolkit

4. Seen this?

5. How About This?

7. Principles of Verification
•Develop human sources — and talk to them
•Consult multiple, credible sources
•Be skeptical
– Is something too good to be true?
•Communicate and collaborate
•Stay up to date with search and research
methods
•Breaking news breeds chaos. Restraint is key.

8. VERIFYING SOCIAL MEDIA
With thanks to Mandy Jenkins (@mjenkins, ZombieJournalism.com)

12. Evaluate the Account & Person
• On Twitter, check when account was created
– Be suspicious of brand-new accounts
• Analyze the network
– Friends, followers, conversations, retweets
– What do they usually tweet/post about?
– Where do they say they are?
– How does it compare?
• Evaluate tweets before and after
• Check their Klout score

13. Check Outside Social Media
•Google the handle/name with “spam, scam,
spammer,” etc. to see if others have complained

14. Check Outside Social Media
•See if you can find other accounts online with the
info you have
•Search the username

15. Contact, Check Other Sources
•DM them, get on the phone, Skype
•Get details and additional corroboration from
people, images, etc.
•Are others reporting this incident or event?
•If so, what sourcing are they using?

16. Law of Incorrect Tweets
The initial, mistaken information will be
retweeted more than any subsequent correction

18. That Means …
Work to get it right,
and don’t rush to be wrong

19. Marathon Bombing Lessons
• Confusion reigns, and is played out in real-
time on Twitter and elsewhere.
• Anyone can (and will) make mistakes.
• Find sources on the ground. See who else has
them. Multiple sources.
• There is glory in restraint.

20. “I think this is where we can provide clarity
versus confusion, and just hold a bit. Because I
think it’ll be more clear soon. No local orgs
reporting it independently is odd to me.”
— Stephanie Clary, BreakingNews

21. VERIFYING PHOTOS & VIDEO

22. Street Shark!

26. Verifying Photos & Video
•Check exif info: regex.info/exif.cgi
•Check history of photo: TinEye, Google Images
•Reference locations against maps and existing
images from the area

29. Verifying Photos & Video
• Check
– Clothes, buildings, language, license
plates, vehicles, etc.
– Do they support the image?
•Examine weather reports, shadows to confirm
conditions shown fit date and time

34. Verifying Photos & Video
•Review the uploader’s history/location
– See if he/she has shared credible content in the past or
may be scraping from others
•Are there images before and after you can
compare to?
•Get the uploader on the phone or Skype to talk
about the image
•Beware of the amazing shot in a breaking news
situation

35. VERIFYING WEB PAGES

37. Verifying Web Pages
•Use Whois lookup on the domain
•Check Internet archive and overall history of
the site, organization or person
•Check site's PageRank

38. Verifying Web Pages
•Isclear and credible ownership/credit
information offered?
– Does the footer information point to a real
ownership entity?
• Does the site/page have life?
– Comments, likes, tweets, recent content, links in &
out ...

39. Verifying Web Pages
•Do blog and news searches to see if
it/people/company has been talked
about/covered already
– Find the original source
•Are people bookmarking it on Diigo or
Delicious?
•Use the phone, send some emails before you
publish anything

40. Verifying Web Pages
• Check names
– Does the person have a personal history?
– Is it a name drawn from history or literature?
• Do the numbers add up?

41. Which One Is Real?

42. Clues
•URL: opinion-nytimes.com, not NYTimes.com
•Slightly different page layout
•Whois: Registered in March
•Shared on Twitter by Twitter account
@nytkeIler (with an uppercase “i” that appeared
to be an “l”) NOT verified

43. Domain name from Whois

44. Which One Is Real?

45. TYPES OF FAKES

46. Real Image, Wrong Event

49. Composite of Real Images

50. Actually from Iowa ...

52. Fictional Presented as Factual

54. Totally Unbelievable

56. Fake Accounts or Facebook Pages

57. Fake Websites

58. The Debunker Toolkit
• Snopes.com
• Google Image Search/TinEye.com
• Whois search
• EXIF reader
• Whendidyoujointwitter.com
• Archive.org/web/web.php

59. Remember
•Photos and other forms of information are
easily manipulated and altered
•Fake news spreads the same as real news
•Big news brings out the fakers — an confusion
for all
•Be skeptical about what you see and read and
hear

60. Remember
•Check the source and the content
•Investigate the network, the history of a SM
account
•Use human sources, always seek contact
•Use tools, but not only tools
•Don’t rush to be wrong. Value restraint

61. Thank You! Questions?