Verification is at the core of the journalistic standards and values and makes the difference between professional media content and other content. While decades ago it was common to let content be verified for accuracy after publishing it, currently, in the post-truth era, checking the accuracy of already distributed content is perceived as a necessity. From the perspective of countering disinformation, the literature differentiates between verification and fact checking based on timing – verification precedes publication, while fact checking comes afterwards. Statements made by politicians, officials, or other prominent actors in the public sphere are fact-checked by professional journalists. However, the two terms are often used interchangeably, argue experts, recalling that the concept and the job title were introduced by Time magazine in the 1920s in New York, when a group of staffers was hired to check the accuracy of the content gathered by reporters. It is “the application of verification that enables the act of fact checking”, experts conclude, and both are components of the debunking process. Decades ago, post-publishing debunking on a large scale would have seemed unimaginable, as correction and right to reply were seen as the last tools in ensuring accuracy.
The Verification Handbook identifies several categories of items to be verified for user-generated content, images, and videos. Four major aspects should be checked: (1) Provenance – is this the original piece of content? (2) Source – who uploaded the content? (3) Date – when was the content created? And (4) location – where was the content created? The Handbook also points to a mix of three factors that can strengthen the practice of verification, which refers to basic journalistic abilities: “1. a person’s resourcefulness, persistence, scepticism, and skill; 2. sources’ knowledge, reliability and honesty, and the number, variety and reliability of sources a reporter can find and persuade to talk; 3. documentation”. In the post-truth environment, professional journalism returns to its roots by putting verification back at the heart of the journalistic process to counter disinformation without amplifying it. The abundance of information requires the use of new modernized tools and approaches, such as digitalization and automation, but essentially journalism remains “the discipline of verification”, as the American Press Institute says, while accuracy remains at heart of any Ethics Code.
Social media is flooded with information and journalists hardly have time for cross-verification or triangulation (getting confirmation from more than two sources), a study conducted in Swedish newsrooms shows, finding that digital tools are a “vital” solution “to change the newsroom culture related to verification”. Another study tested and confirmed the efficiency of semi-automated tools that assist journalists in validating the trustworthiness of certain social media content. The practice of verification is entering a new stage of digital transformation.
