Hello! Welcome back to your data journalism course.
Introduction
In our last lesson, you learned how to structure a news story using the inverted pyramid, ensuring your most important findings are presented first. Now that you know how to build the structure of a story, we need to ensure its foundation is rock-solid. That foundation is built on one of the most important principles in journalism: verification.
Today's lesson is dedicated to today's learning outcome: to evaluate the credibility of sources using verification techniques. Think of this as the quality assurance (QA) process for information. Before you publish a story, and especially before you invest time in analyzing a dataset, you must rigorously check that your sources—whether they are people, documents, or data files—are accurate and trustworthy.
For a data journalist interested in uncovering hidden truths, verification isn't just a step in the process; it is the process.
The Core Principles of Verification
In an age of rampant misinformation, it's tempting to become cynical and distrust everything. However, a journalist's role is not to be cynical, but to be skeptical. Skepticism is about questioning and seeking proof. The first step is to adopt a simple but powerful mental framework.
To understand this framework, let's turn to some research from the Stanford History Education Group, which found that professional fact-checkers have a distinct and more effective way of evaluating information than other highly educated people.
The Facts about Fact Checking: Crash Course Navigating Digital Information #2
The video 'The Facts about Fact Checking' from CrashCourse introduces a simple, three-question framework that is the foundation of all verification work.
Please watch from 02:16 to 07:09. As you watch, focus on: How easily well-educated people were fooled by a website's professional appearance. The three core questions that fact-checkers ask themselves. The breakdown and examples provided for each of the three questions.
As the video explained, the three essential questions to ask when you encounter any new piece of information are:
- Who is behind this information? (And what is their motivation?)
- What is the evidence for their claims? (Is it strong, weak, or non-existent?)
- What do other, independent sources say? (Do they confirm or contradict the claim?)
This framework is your starting point for every investigation.
Verification in Action: Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT)
For investigative journalists, verification often involves using Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT)—a set of techniques for collecting and analyzing data from publicly available sources to produce actionable intelligence. Given your background in software development, you'll likely find these methods fascinating. They are systematic, reliant on digital tools, and often feel like solving a complex puzzle.
OSINT techniques can be used to verify events, identify individuals, and uncover wrongdoing, all from a computer. This is the world of organizations like Bellingcat and the investigative units at major news outlets.
The following video from the BBC World Service showcases some of the most impactful stories that were built on these techniques. It demonstrates how journalists can sort fact from fiction in the most chaotic of circumstances.
How 'open-source' journalism transformed investigations at the BBC - BBC World Service
The video 'How 'open-source' journalism transformed investigations at the BBC' provides powerful, real-world examples of verification.
Please watch the segment from 04:54 to 09:00 and then from 14:50 to 23:42. Pay close attention to the specific methods used in the Cameroon investigation: Geolocation: How did they determine where the video was filmed using the mountain range and satellite imagery? Temporal Verification: How did they determine when it was filmed using shadows and changes in buildings over time? Collaboration: Notice how this was not a solo effort but a collaboration between journalists and online investigators.
The Cameroon investigation is a masterclass in verification. By meticulously matching visual clues in the video to satellite data (geolocation) and analyzing shadows and building changes (temporal verification), the investigators established the undeniable truth of where and when the atrocity occurred. This is the level of rigor that gives data and investigative journalism its power.
Your Practical Toolkit for Online Verification
The OSINT examples are inspiring, but you also need a day-to-day toolkit for vetting the claims and data you encounter online. This involves a more forensic approach to using search engines and other web tools. Your experience with query languages and logical operators will be a significant advantage here.
The following article from the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) provides an excellent, step-by-step guide.
This guide, '12 Tips for Verification,' walks through a real-world example of debunking a statistic cited in the New York Times. It's a fantastic demonstration of practical verification skills.
Read through the article to see how the author applies various verification techniques. You don't need to memorize all 12 tips, but focus on understanding the process of investigation. Pay special attention to these techniques: Tips 1-3: Using precise search terms, going from broad to narrow searches, and using the 'Time Machine' (custom date range) to trace a claim's origin. Tip 4: Using the site: operator to search within a specific website. Tip 8: Using Reverse Image Search to find the origin and context of a photo. Tip 9: Using the filetype:pdf operator to find official documents. Tip 10: Using Archive.org (The Wayback Machine) to see past versions of websites. Tip 11: Using the - operator to exclude a site from your search results.
As the article demonstrates, a seemingly credible statistic ("300,000 items in the average US household") can fall apart under basic scrutiny. Tracing it back revealed it originated from a single person's memory, not a scientific study. This is why you can never take a claim at face value, even when it's in a reputable publication.
Test your understanding!
Imagine you see a post on social media from an anonymous account claiming that a major Hungarian company is about to declare bankruptcy. The post includes a blurry photo of what looks like an internal memo. Before you spend any time on this potential story, what are your first three verification steps?
Show answer
Based on what you've learned, here are three solid initial steps:
- Check the source (Who?): Since the account is anonymous, you can't verify the person. Instead, investigate the account itself. How old is it? What does it usually post? Who does it follow or interact with? This helps assess its potential motives and credibility.
- Check other sources (What do others say?): Conduct targeted searches on official channels. Check the Budapest Stock Exchange website for any official announcements. Search major financial news outlets (like Portfolio.hu or HVG) for any reporting on the company's financial health. Look for official statements from the company itself. The absence of corroborating information is a major red flag.
- Investigate the evidence (What is the evidence?): Use a reverse image search on the blurry memo photo. Does it appear anywhere else online? It might be an old, repurposed image. While the text might be too blurry to read, you can also search for key phrases if any are visible, using quotation marks to look for exact matches.
Verifying the Data Itself
For a data journalist, verifying human sources and online claims is only half the battle. You must also verify your primary source material: the data. A flawed dataset will lead to a flawed story. The process for verifying data is analogous to verifying any other source.
The key steps are outlined in this guide from GIJN.
Introduction to Investigative Journalism: Data Journalism
This excerpt from an 'Introduction to Investigative Journalism' focuses specifically on handling data. It explains the critical first steps you must take before starting your analysis.
Please read the sections 'Understand the nature of the data,' 'Verify the data,' and the 'Fact-checking' portion under 'Other Considerations.' Think about how these steps relate to software development principles like reading documentation and code review.
To summarize the key data verification steps:
- Scrutinize the Source: Who collected this data? A government agency? A university? A private company? What is their reputation? Why did they collect it?
- Read the Documentation: Never work with data without its "readme" file or data dictionary. This documentation explains what each column means, how the data was collected, and its known limitations. It's the equivalent of API documentation; working without it is professional malpractice.
- Cross-Reference and Sanity-Check: Does the data make sense? Compare aggregates from your dataset with figures from other trusted sources. For example, if your dataset covers Hungarian exports, do the total figures roughly align with what Eurostat or the KSH reports?
- Reproduce the Analysis: Just as two developers should be able to run the same code and get the same result, a key verification step is to have a colleague (or to do it yourself from a clean slate) reproduce your analysis. If you both get the same results, your process is likely sound.
Conclusion
Verification is a mindset of professional skepticism combined with a toolbox of systematic techniques. It is the core of journalistic credibility and the engine of investigative reporting.
Key Takeaways:
- Always start with the three questions: Who made the claim, what is the evidence, and what do other sources say?
- OSINT techniques like geolocation and temporal verification provide powerful, evidence-based ways to confirm facts.
- Your technical skills are an asset in mastering advanced search operators (
site:,filetype:,-, etc.) and tools like the Wayback Machine. - Data itself is a source and must be verified by scrutinizing its origin, reading its documentation, and cross-referencing its findings.
Preview of the Next Lesson:
Now that you can find the facts and verify them, we need to discuss how to handle them ethically. In our next lesson, we will address another cornerstone of journalism: ethics. You'll learn how to apply journalistic ethical principles to resolve a specific reporting dilemma, such as balancing the public's right to know against potential harm to individuals.