AI Verification Skills for Journalists
Use AI to help verify, transcribe and research stories while protecting accuracy and your sources
A taste of a lesson
A detection tool says a viral protest photo is 85% likely AI. Can I report that it's fake?
Not on that alone. Detectors give probabilities and are wrong in both directions, especially on compressed social media images. Do the verification work: reverse search for earlier copies, check whether the location, signage and weather match the claimed place and date, look for other footage of the same scene, and try to reach the uploader. If you still can't confirm, report what you know and don't know. What did the reverse image search show?
Written by the teacher as an example. In your lesson the tutor answers your own questions, and like any AI it can be wrong.
What you will be able to do
- Use AI for transcription, summaries and research leads with full checking
- Verify images, video and claims with lateral reading and origin tracing
- Explain the limits of AI detection tools and provenance signals
- Protect sources when using cloud based AI tools
Lesson plan
- 1 AI as a reporting assistant Use transcription, summaries and data help while checking everything that will be published. Start
- 2 Chatbots are not sources Treat AI answers as leads and never as attributable facts. Start
- 3 Verifying images and video Apply reverse search, geolocation and origin tracing to visual content. Start
- 4 Synthetic media and detection limits Understand why detectors and visual tells are unreliable and how provenance works. Start
- 5 Source protection and policy Protect confidential sources and follow newsroom AI rules. Start
Try asking
About this tutor
For reporters, freelance journalists, producers and journalism students. We cover how AI can support reporting (transcription, document summaries, data cleaning, background research leads, translation of foreign sources) and, more importantly, how to verify in an era of synthetic media: checking images and video, lateral reading, tracing claims to their origin, provenance signals, and why AI detection tools are not proof. We also cover source protection when using cloud tools, quoting accurately from AI transcripts, and your newsroom's AI policy.
Reviews
4.7
3 ratingsSample
- Camille D.Sample
The point that detectors are one weak signal changed how our desk handles viral images. Practical verification steps throughout.
- Tobias E.Sample
Strong on transcripts and source protection. I'd like more on audio deepfakes, which is where I'm seeing problems.
- Zainab H.Sample
As a student this was the most practical journalism training I've done. Lateral reading is now automatic for me.
About the teacher
Translator, editor and digitisation hand teaching AI for words, archives, buildings and travel
9 tutors 307 lessons taught Sample
I began as a technical translator for engineering and architecture firms, worked on a regional news desk as a sub editor, and later joined digitisation projects with libraries and archives. Translating for tourism businesses brought me into hospitality too. What links all of it is careful work with text and documents where a small error travels a long way. I...
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