What's real? How CBC News verifies video and images

We use this editor's blog to explain our journalism and what's happening at CBC News. You can find more blogs here.

More than 600 newsrooms including ours at CBC will today mark World News Day, an annual global initiative to draw public attention to the role journalists and trustworthy news play in service to citizens and democracy. 

This year's World News Day theme, "Choose Truth," resonates at a time of growing disinformation, AI-generated deep fakes and when big technology platforms use algorithms to significantly shape, limit or exclude news from our feeds. 

There's plenty of evidence that our information ecosystem is distorted, from an explosion of conspiracy theories such as the recent false claims of pet-eating refugees to the fact Canadians can't share credible news on Facebook because of Meta's rejection of the Online News Act. (Of note: more than a year has passed and still a surprising "super-majority" of Canadians don't realize credible news has been banned from their Facebook and Instagram feeds, according to an online survey of 1,463 Canadians conducted in July.)   

And of course, we all live in a world where it's easier than ever for people to use video and images to make something untrue seem real — including CBC News journalists who find their likeness used in ad scams.

More and more, we see examples of audio, video and photos being misused or manipulated, often with artificial intelligence, influencing and shaping what people believe to be true. 

The need for consistency and quality around fact-checking and verification work is also growing, even as CBC works with international partners to make the origins of media more transparent through initiatives like Content Credentials. 

Journalism has always been about confirming the legitimacy of pictures and video, but it is increasingly important for our teams at CBC News to verify the "who, what, where and when" of any content we didn't capture ourselves.

Take, for example, the devastating wildfire that burned so much of Jasper, Alta., this summer.

As the flames moved closer to the town, residents were evacuated and media kept away, leaving only essential emergency crews on the ground. Some of those people who stayed to work in the community posted photos and videos of the destruction.

Journalistically, those images were of critical importance to the public's understanding of the situation. They were the only indication many of us had to the extent of damage, while everyone else, including reporters, was forced to wait far away until the danger subsided.

The posts also presented significant challenges for credible news organizations. Many of the people who took the photos and videos that circulated so quickly didn't want others to know their identity given the work they were doing. There were many screenshots (and screenshots of screenshots). So tracing this important content back to its original source was not easy and, in many instances, impossible.

The images also showed neighbourhoods in many parts of the town so badly destroyed they were almost unrecognizable, even to CBC employees who were very familiar with the town.

None of that, though, diminished the extreme importance of giving all of our audiences — but especially residents of Jasper who had been forced to flee — a look at what had been damaged and what had not.

So our teams got down to work, using tools such as Google Street View and archival footage to find clues confirming the images we were seeing were indeed from Jasper and, if so, to determine the exact location where they had been taken.

In many cases, that meant looking at distinguishable landmarks within the rubble – like a distinctive decorative rock on a lawn or an identifiable metal fence – or comparing a photo from before the flames to what was left afterwards, such as a concrete front porch or brick chimney.

We also used digital tools to evaluate whether there was any indication that the images had been artificially manipulated.

It took time and effort. But it was essential work; our duty was to verify the legitimacy of anything we published or broadcast to be sure that we were giving our audiences a view of the aftermath that we knew to be true and accurate.

The work of video and photo verification requires training and practice. Recognizing how crucial it is and will continue to be for all of our journalism, CBC News has developed and is now rolling out a new training program for our journalists. We are building the skills of people in newsrooms all across Canada who can quickly help verify visual content.

We're also establishing a dedicated news team focused on developing original and investigative storytelling using open-source information (e.g. satellite images, social media) and verification methods and tools. 

All of this is part of how CBC News fulfils the commitment to accuracy that's central to our Journalistic Standards and Practices, so that our audiences can, in the words of today's World News Day theme, "Choose Truth."

Speaking of trustworthy news, I'm pleased to report that CBC News has again been certified under the Journalism Trust Initiative (JTI), an international standard involving external audits designed to showcase and promote trustworthy journalism. Read more about the JTI at Reporters Without Borders.