Methodology

A workforce of reporters at The Washington Put up has been monitoring and verifying movies of the battle since Feb. 24. To do this, reporters geolocate the video by cross-referencing distinctive landmarks within the footage with dependable supply materials corresponding to satellite tv for pc imagery or Google Earth road view. Subsequent, reporters examine when the video was recorded, checking for metadata and time stamps. Different visuals, official statements, eyewitness testimony and spoken audio present context that may assist corroborate movies. Reporters additionally evaluation the uploader’s account and attempt to discover the unique supply for the video. The supply hyperlinks on this database are the place reporters found the video on-line, however will not be all the time the unique supply. Weapons and army gear could be clues as to what transpired; reporters seek the advice of with army specialists on that. Some movies on this database had been additionally corroborated by information verification teams corresponding to Storyful or open-source researchers, however all have been independently confirmed by The Put up.

Put up reporters additionally display screen for faux movies by analyzing whether or not there are soar cuts, interrupted audio, or visuals and audio that don’t match. We additionally run a reverse-image search and search for different posts on the identical subject to verify it’s not an previous video — maybe even from a special battle — that’s recirculating.

Verification takes rigorous reporting, fact-checking and collaboration throughout the newsroom. The Put up publishes solely verified movies.

Credit

Visible forensics reporting by Sarah Cahlan, Joyce Sohyun Lee, Meg Kelly, Atthar Mirza, Elyse Samuels, Samuel Oakford, Jon Swaine, Razzan Nakhlawi, Jonathan Baran, Pleasure Sharon Yi, JM Rieger, Jason Aldag, Karly Domb Sadof, Dalton Bennett, Louisa Loveluck, Monica Rodman and Adriana Usero. Design and improvement by Shikha Subramaniam, Leo Dominguez, Gabriel Florit, Atthar Mirza, Joe Fox and Jason Bernert. Graphics by Dylan Moriarty. Writing by Elyse Samuels, Ruby Mellen, Samuel Oakford, Sarah Cahlan and Meg Kelly.

Enhancing by Matt Callahan, Reem Akkad, Nadine Ajaka and Ann Gerhart. Copy modifying by Vanessa Larson.