WATCH: How ACM journalists verify stories
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00:00Meta has taken away fact-checking, X as we know is a total game of its own, and
00:04citizen journalism is becoming more and more prominent. It's probably never been
00:09as hard but also never been as important to know that where you're getting your
00:12news from is accurate and reliable. So I thought I'd take you through how I
00:16verified facts for a story that I wrote recently. This is a story about the Bell
00:20apartment complex in Bruce. Now to catch you up to speed the Canberra Times has
00:24been covering stories about defects in the complex for a couple of years now.
00:28The most recent update is that the owners corporation believed they may have to
00:32cough up money to fix some of the apartments that weren't included in the
00:36government's rectification orders that they issued to the builder. The owners
00:39corporation were making some pretty big claims around the ACT government
00:43essentially not doing their job properly and so there was a lot to verify to make
00:47sure that everything in the article was true and it wasn't defamatory. First my
00:51colleague Brittany who previously covered the property round was the one
00:53that used to write on Bell so I had a detailed chat with her to learn what she
00:58knew about it fill in the blanks before I read up on some previous documents. I
01:02then got in contact with the owners corporation and I sat down with them for
01:06about two hours to hash out what was going on and make sure that I had my
01:10facts straight on what they were seeing from their side. But you can't stop at
01:14just that and take people's word for things. I then went through a long list
01:18of emails and documentation between the owners corporation, the government and
01:21other parties to make sure that I had timelines correct and that I knew
01:25everything that I needed to know about what was going on in the complex. Doesn't
01:29stop there though I then put questions to the ACT government for them to
01:32respond to and the responses were included in the article. This makes sure
01:36I haven't misunderstood anything from the owners corporation and that I'm not
01:39missing any joining dots in the process of writing the story. Finally I sent the
01:43story to colleagues, my property editor and the Canberra Times editor to make
01:48sure that they sign off on everything and are happy with what I've written.
01:51It then goes to producers to be edited before you see the news online and in
01:57the paper. For a story like the Bell property update which had a lot of
02:00moving parts this whole process took about three weeks on and off to do and I
02:04think it shows that it's important to check that where you're getting your
02:07news from is verified next time you look for it online.