A video from a classroom during the shooting in Austria. Footage of the only survivor after the plane crash in India. Today, editor-in-chief Lindsay Mossink zooms in on this: how do you know for sure that they are real?
This week, a plane crashed in India. A major news event, from which various videos soon appeared online. Our video editing team knows what to do with that. In all cases, it starts with the question: do we trust these images or source?
Often that is clear quickly. But sometimes we have to move to the edge of our seat. Because we suspect that the video is authentic, but it is not conclusive enough at first glance. That can be due to both the source and the images themselves.
In India, one passenger survived the disaster, as the only one. A remarkable story, of course. Soon images circulated showing the man himself walking to the ambulance. We did not immediately place that video on NU.nl on Thursday (the day of the plane crash).
A handful of colleagues stood together looking at the screen and discussing vigorously. The verdict? After an extensive inspection of the images, the video editing team did not dare to do it yet.
Time to watch the video. You can do that below. Then I’ll tell you more about the detail that made the difference.
The only survivor of the plane crash in India walks to the ambulance himself
The next morning, video editor Dave Kornuijt continued to search for confirmation tenaciously. Our regular source Storyful (an agency that specializes in verifying online images) was also working on an analysis. All to be sure that the images are real, because only then do we want to publish such a video.
The redeeming word came from Storyful on Friday morning. The research, as we also do time and time again, was thorough. The passenger list, the man’s passport, a photo of him in the hospital and even the logo of the hospital on his pillow were placed next to each other with military precision.
Ultimately, the photo from the hospital helped us verify the man in the video. Sometimes you better grab a magnifying glass, because here too it is a very small detail: the earring in his left ear. That was not so easy to see. The right image below is a still moment from the video, and the left is the photo of the man in the hospital.
A remarkable corner
A jump to earlier in the week. A former student shoots around at a school in Graz, Austria. Our video team signals a video from a classroom. In the background we hear shots.
Shots can be heard in video from classroom at Austrian school
Another video that we cannot trust directly. Video editor Marko Mikic and editor-in-chief Frank Brinkhuis get to work. Which detail in the video can we verify? What gives us the confidence that the video was indeed made during this shooting, in exactly that school at that one moment?
In the video we see a few buildings in the background through the window. That’s what we’ll have to do with. A tour of the neighborhood in Google Streetview follows. Marko and Frank recognize that remarkable corner in the orange building. Just look at the photo below. On the left you see a still image from the video and on the right the image of the street in Streetview.
When in doubt, you need details that fully correspond to reality. And the more confirmed details, the better. Think of the people themselves, the place, surrounding buildings or the moment. You want to keep stacking until you dare to put your hand in the fire for the reliability of the images. Not always easy, but very important.
