Checking online sources

The Internet is a great resource for journalists, as long as the information found is treated with caution.  Journalists, more than anyone, should know not to believe everything they read.  In the past it was relatively easy to check out the credentials of a book, newspaper or magazine, but in the digital age anyone can make a professional looking website and publish whatever they want.

Hoax stories do quite often make it into the mainstream media.  In one famous case Reuters published a story about Pol Pot visiting Sweden.  A Reuters journalist had seen a website showing photos of Pol Pot arriving at a Swedish airport and, believing the site to be the official site of a Russian news agency, filed the report.  Reuters put the story on the wire and to their embarrassment discovered later that it was a hoax created by a Swedish web design company.

So how could the unfortunate journalist have avoided the embarrassment?  If he had looked up who owned the site, he would have realised that it had nothing to do with a news agency.  All owners of domain names have to register with a Network Information Centre (NIC), and this data is available to the public.  You simply have to go to the appropriate NIC, and type in the domain name.  For all .com domain names this is the INTERNIC.

A query to INTERNIC would have told the journalist that the domain name was owned by a Swedish company, and given him contact addresses and telephone numbers.  He would have known that it was very unlikely to be the site of a Russian news agency, and a telephone call could have confirmed his suspicions.

As well as checking out the owner of a site, there are other criteria you can use to decide if a site is useful and reliable.  Is the content original and current?  Just because the information is new to you, doesn’t mean it is necessarily up-to date.  Does the site represent a specific cause or issue?  Is the information fair and balanced?  Many sites have an ‘About’ page which gives data about the owner, authors and editorial policy.

Finally, treat information gathered from the Internet like any other information.  Double-check the facts whenever possible and if you’re not sure about the veracity of a story, don’t publish it.