Josh Stearns’ one-stop shop for becoming a verification expert

On his Groundswell blog, journalist and activist Josh Stearns recently rounded up a ton of links and other information on a favorite subject around here, verification on social media.

He calls his post, headlined Verifying Social Media Content: The Best Links, Case Studies and Discussion, “a work in progress.” It has to be, because social media and its related tools are constantly in flux.

Stearns, who writes that he has “developed a healthy obsession with verification,” reports:

I have been collecting these links for awhile, but a recent study profiled over at Poynter inspired me to post my list here. The study  showed little consistency in how journalists approach assessing the accuracy of social media content. The links below are presented in no particular order, but are organized into three categories: How-To Guides, Case-Studies, Discussions and Studies.

If it seems like we talk about verification a lot on the B/R Blog, it’s because we do. We can’t talk about it too much. Verifying what we see online, especially on social media, is a crucial part of being a Bleacher Report writer, and, increasingly, it’s a huge part of being a writer anywhere.

We’ve leaned on Stearns’ expertise before. Follow the many links he provides in his latest post and turn yourself into a verification expert.

Update: Stearns also tweeted a link to his more recent post, A Crash Course in Verification and Misinformation in the Wake of the Boston Bombing. “My hope is to pull out some key lessons and analysis from those many Boston links into a follow up post,” he wrote. Stay tuned.