ONA Issues

Fact-Checking Sandy Coverage

The photo above of the Manhattan skyline was just one of many that went viral yesterday during Hurricane Sandy, and also confirmed as fake by the Atlantic, among others. The spread of misinformation on social media went beyond photos, as both CNN and the Weather Channel incorrectly reported that the NY Stock Exchange was under three feet of water.

How can journalists responsibly deal with the amount of content hurtling through SM channels and networks during a breaking news event? Here’s the first step, courtesy of Craig Silverman, founder of “Regret the Error”: Think before you repost. “Verify it, or don’t spread it,” he writes on Poynter, where he identifies multiple ways to verify photos and highlights three ways to tell if an image has been manipulated. For more tips, see Silverman’s presentation on B.S. Detection for journalists from ONA11, which he gave with Mandy Jenkins, Interactives Editor for Digital First Media, and newly elected member to the ONA Board.

Here are a few sessions from ONA12 with tips to help you verify and improve your breaking news coverage:

• Brush up on best practices vs. bad habits in social media with Anthony De Rosa, Social Media Editor at Reuters; Liz Heron, Social Media Director at the Wall Street Journal; Niketa Patel, Social Media Product Manager at CNN Money; and Eric Carvin, Social Media Editor, Associated Press. 
• Review the ethics of using community-generated content in the newsroom with Amanda Michel, Open Editor at the Guardian; Fergus Bell, Social Media and UGC Editor – International,  AP;  and Jennifer Preston, Staff Writer, New York Times.
• Get advice on how and when to use social photography in the newsroom from Claire O’Neill, Multimedia Producer at NPR and Robert Koci Hernandez, Assistant Professor of New Media at UC Berkeley and newly elected member to the ONA Board.

Alexis Madrigal and Meghan Garber at the Atlantic have been busy verifying Sandy photos, and are still asking readers to send them in. According to Madrigal, “The fakes come in three varieties: 1) Real photos that were taken long ago, but that pranksters reintroduce as images of Sandy, 2) Photoshopped images that are straight up fake, and 3) The combination of the first two: old, Photoshopped pictures being trotted out again.” They have identified over 20 Sandy photos as real, fake or unconfirmed so far.

The Atlantic, as well as Storyful and the Chicago Tribune, also have compiled tips on spotting fakes on social media. The Guardian adds a helpful list of webcams on the East Coast that you can use to verify images. Does a photo look too good to be true? Does it look like it came right out of a movie? Think twice before reposting it and check to see if it’s already been identified as fake.