Verification for beginners: a journalism trainer writes
By: Nick Raistrick
Tags: Covid 19, Verification, Journalism, Lockdown, Training

Verification for beginners: a journalism trainer writes

Learning ‘the four second rule’ to avoid spreading fake #coronanews.

To be clear: I’m not key worker. I’m not a doctor; nor am I a virologist, epidemiologist, or health expert, except in the way in which we are all armchair immunologist these days.

In fact, I’ve only got one science qualification. GCSE, biology, grade C, class of 1989. But fake science, false rumours, and dodgy information? It’s been a big part of my professional life for the last two decades.

I train journalists* around the world, mostly in developing and transitional countries. I’ve worked with junior reporters, desk editors, station bosses, and everything in-between, from newsgathering teams to programme-makers and individual reporters.

Specifically I’ve worked extensively in countries where journalism is not normally a financially rewarding profession; so it’s less competitive. Fewer people have access to higher education and as a result, people often end up reporting on health issues, for example, without having a science background.

battling fake news from the bunker of accuracy…

I’ve written handbooks and online courses for journalists and communicators too, and whilst it’s not my specialist subject, I’ve delivered a fair amount of training on verification skills over the years.

It’s a rapidly changing field, but the underlying questions are the same. Is this information true? Can we broadcast it? Print it? Go live with it?

In this current pandemic, with so much false information around, it seems some of these basic journalism skills might be useful for ordinary folk who feel overwhelmed by information. This is a pretty basic introduction to the topic, and aimed at a non-technical, non-medical audience: older relatives, perhaps, or that friend you have who, er, overshares. But I’ve included links for those who want to dig deeper.

It’s a relatively long read, but since we are in lockdown, I think it’s worth it.

And the process gets much quicker: verification, formerly known as fact-checking, is essentially a filtering process. It becomes almost instinctive, once you answer a few basic ‘W’ questions with satisfaction. I think it takes about four seconds.

What???

(What’s the story? And is it too good to be true? Or too bad?)

Is it too good to be true that you could avoid a respiratory infection from a nice cup of tea? Yes. It is literally too good to be true, but it’s one of the many fake rumours out there.

Is it true that petrol pumps are causing the spread of COVID-19? Yes, but all hard surfaces have this potential, and a WhatsApp message that claimed the ‘virus seems to be spreading quickly via petrol pumps’ is most certainly fake.

Note: There is nearly always a bit of truth mixed up with the fake stuff; it adds credence to the report.

Here’s a quick and easy check you can do. Copy and paste a couple of key phrases into Google, or a dedicated factchecking site, like Fullfact.org. In this case try ‘virus seems to be spreading quickly via petrol pumps’. You can add a couple of other keywords like ‘factcheck’, ‘Snopes’, or even ‘hoax’ if you already have doubts. That’s what I did with the petrol pump story: it took about four seconds to do.

source: screengrab from Google search page 22 March, created by author.

It’s confusing when lazy journalists don’t do their verification properly. In this example, you can see that the Sun fell for a hoax (although a later edition did), the Daily Mail didn’t.

Does it matter? Potentially; if people fixate on one particular source of transmission, they ignore others and the behaviour can lead to the spread of a virus which kills people.

Having said that, I just got back from a shop where an old guy blew his nose into his hanky, and rifled for an eternity through the tabloid newspapers with the same hand. Some people are beyond help.

Note: The copy and paste key words technique works better on a big screen. My personal theory is that people are using phones for information which means they skim read more, and copy and paste less. This will get worse as lockdown progresses. It’s just a theory.

Who???

(AKA what’s the source?)

Where did this information come from? Not the sharer, your pal, who is a trustworthy, straight up guy. But the original source who you don’t know at this stage.

In an editorial team meeting, what’s the source? is usually the second follow up question, if a story shows legs. With inexperienced news teams I have to ask this a lot.

What’s the source?

A friend

What’s his source?

He works in the hospital

Did he actually see somebody rob a doctor for his ID in order for the thief to use it to steal bog roll?

No

What’s his source then?

*reporter checks*

He read it on Twitter

*story spiked*

At the back of her mind, the news editor is thinking, who can we speak to to go on record to confirm or deny this rumour? Who is credible?

With fake corona virus news, as with much fake news in general, look for the ‘official’ element (to add believability) mixed with twist of insider/secrecy (which is why the mainstream media has not picked up on this).

Look at this tweet, which I noticed today (23 March) whilst researching this article:

It falls into the ‘too bad to be true’ category. Surely not? People wouldn’t do that?

Several people responded, expressing disgust at humanity. The Tweet has been shared several hundred times. But to my cynical eye, it just smelt like a rat, for loads of reasons.

Firstly, this would be a big story, if true. Why wasn’t it being reported? People are desperate for C-19 stories, and London is a big city. Somebody would go on the record; I’d send reporters to investigate, if I were a news editor.

Also, stealing photo ID didn’t make sense. To steal from a hospital you’d need to know where the store cupboard is, which would mean asking around in a crime scene which has been infected by a deadly virus using fake ID. Who would take that risk? Strange things do happen, but it didn’t make sense.

Finally, there was a couple of specific phrases in the initial mail.

‘Junior doctors’: why would only junior doctors be told about this, surely it would be all staff?

‘one London hospital’: surely if this were happening in one London hospital, all hispitals would be at risk?

So I aked the who question. Quite a few times. I found that the first mention of seems to have been made by a Russia Today reporter called Afshin Rattansi. Russia Today (AKA RT) is Kremlin-funded propoganda, and not a reliable source of news. Specifically RT sets out to portray a negative picture of British life, and is not considered trustworthy. He pinned his Tweet.

Needless to say, Afshin did not reply. But his comments were successful in causing arguments by those who responded; some people called for the army to be brought in, some blamed those on the right, others blamed those on the left. Inevitably, some blamed immigrants.

“Our country is going to hell,” said one user, perhaps unwittingly parroting RT’s editorial line which is basically, ‘the West is collapsing, look at this story which proves it’

It drew out a whole load of other commentary from people who felt the same, and horror stories too.

People are spitting on doctors and the police in Holland, claimed another. Digging deeper, and upsetting a Dutch lady on Twitter in my efforts to find a source. It turns out to have been a single incident, a drunk lady who remembered nothing about what happened.

Horrible, but not a pandemic of spitting: and at a policeman not a doctor.

But it seemed some people wanted to believe the worst.

It was also curious to see how involved the arguments were about who to blame for this thing that never happened. I flagged up the flaws in the story, and got a handful of positive messages. But mostly people kept on sharing it, even after I’d exposed the story as fake. Hundreds of them.

Sarah Muldoon, if that is her real name, also smelt a rat and did something about it that I was too lazy to do; she contacted the Met Police, who confirmed they had not been contacted about any incident.

Sarah, and many like her, are amongst the unsung heroes of the pandemic. The fact-checkers.

At this stage, the story does not have any evidence associated with it.

(update #1 : 24 hours later, there is still no evidence that this story is true, although as the lockdown was announced the need for medical staff to wear ID at all times to avoid being stopped by the police has been discussed. So the advice not to wear ID could turn out to be the opposite of future government advice. Source: BBC Radio 4 Today programme interview.

update #2: There were some muggings of doctors, it seems, and medical teams told to be careful; but it was a few months ago. Not C19 related, or anything to do with ID so far as I can tell. Still no word from the original poster of this story (Russia Today).

The lesson from this, is beware suspiciously vague insider knowledge.

It’s the ‘stable lad/friend of the star/Jürgen Klopp’s hairdresser thing’ thing. Let’s look at another example. The source is quoted as ‘an internal email for staff in London St George’s Hospital’.

The alarm bells ring loudly just from this first sentence. Why would a NHS restrict access to vital information about COVID-19? Which doctor would withold information that could save lives? Why no recipient or time code?

I printed it out, and did a detailed-ish analysis on this, after it was shared on my five-a-side football WhatsApp group; the guy who posted it was genuinely asking for verification, because the guy was suspicious. It’s an interesting case study (requires biggish screen).