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Journalism & Media vocabulary · Fact-Checking and Verification

Verify

Meaning in journalism & media, with examples

/ˈverɪfaɪ/verbCore term

In journalism & media, verify means: To check carefully that information, a photo, a video or a source is real and true before you use or publish it.

In Turkish: doğrulamak, teyit etmek

How it is used

Central to digital journalism: journalists verify claims, footage, accounts and locations. The noun verification is common in job titles and teams. Stories may say the video could not be independently verified when checks are incomplete.

Example sentences

  1. We could not verify the photo, so we decided not to use it.

  2. The claims have not been independently verified.

Common collocations

  • verify a claim
  • verify footage
  • independently verified
  • verification team
  • fact-checkTo check whether the names, numbers, dates and claims in a story or statement are correct before or after it is published; as a noun, the check itself.
  • reverse image searchA search that uses an image instead of words to find where else that image appears online and when it was first published.
  • accuracyThe quality of being correct in every fact, name, number and quote, which is the first duty of a journalist in most codes of practice.
  • sourceA person, document or organisation that gives a journalist information for a story; also the place where a piece of information comes from.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Fact-Checking and Verification

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