#Tip: Learn from this post on verifying pope story

Image by Ivy Dawned on Flickr. Some rights reserved

The BBC College of Journalism has published a post explaining how journalists could have fact-checked an image that allegedly shows Jorge Bergoglio, the recently elected Pope Francis, standing beside former Argentine dictator Jorge Videla.

The post, which is by Henk van Ess, who chairs the VVOJ, (the Association of Investigative Journalists for The Netherlands and Belgium), explains how internet research could have debunked the incorrect story.

The post explains various tools, tricks and tips that can be useful in verification, such as Backtweets, Google advanced operators and he advises to “always think ‘video’ when you see a picture”.

The must-read post is at this link.

Journalism.co.uk runs a one-day course on advanced online research. Find out more at this link.

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#Tip: Read this post on searching social media

Image by Nic Soto on Flickr. Some rights reserved

The BBC College of Journalism has a helpful post on searching social media.

BBC internet research specialist Paul Myers has written a post with tips on searching Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and other sites.

If you find that post helpful you might also like this guide on searching social media for stories.

Journalism.co.uk runs a course on advanced online research skills. The next course runs on 18 April. At the time of writing there were three places available.

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#Tip: Use the Banjo app as a journalism search tool

We’ve recommended the Banjo app (for Android and iOS) in the past.

The free location-based app encourages you to connect your social networks, and you then can see which of your connections are nearby. You can also search cities to see what your social media contacts, their connections and other Banjo users are tweeting and sharing in those locations.

Banjo was a Journalism.co.uk app of the week just over a year ago, and before that journalism site 10,000 Words has described how a reporter used it to locate people at a shopping mall where there had been a reported bomb scare.

Banjo also has a handy filter function that allows you to search your social media posts sent near you for a keyword. The top right image filters for the term “journalist” in posts sent close to Hackney, London. The search shows the word was used in two recent social media posts and is in 48 profiles.

Yesterday The Next Web reported that there are now 4 million Banjo users, and highlighted algorithm updates.

Today’s tip is to try Banjo if you do not yet use it. It could come in useful when trying to find someone at a particular location when you are working on a news story.

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#Tip of the day for journalists: Use ‘define’ to check a dictionary definition

Image by plentyofants on Flickr. Some rights reserved

As a journalist you no doubt have to check a dictionary definition now and again. It may be to check the meaning or to reassure yourself you have the correct word (compliment or complement, illicit or elicit, virality or virility, for example).

You will see from this list of errors that appeared on the New York Times site that sometimes a spell check does not help.

So do you reach for a book, launch an application or look to an online dictionary? A quick way is to use the Google advanced operator to give you the result.

Type ‘define:keyword‘ into your Google search bar and you will be given a result.

For example, here I typed ‘define:complement’ into Google.

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#Tip of the day for journalists: Set up a custom site search in Alfred

Mac users may be familiar with a free productivity tool that is available in the App Store called Alfred.

Alfred is a powerful tool that allows you to launch and search apps and web sites in a couple of clicks.

For example, you can open Alfred (by pressing ‘alt’ and ‘space’) and then carry out a calculation, search your contacts or start typing the the name of an application and launch it.

If you are a Mac user and journalist, you probably find yourself carrying out a number of site searches a day to find previously published content.

For example, I have carried out a number of site searches today to find previously published content on Journalism.co.uk. I could do this typing the Google advanced operator site:journalism.co.uk into my Google search box followed by the query (for example site:journalism.co.uk “tip of the day”). As I have Alfred set up to perform this site search I can run the search in 21 fewer clicks.

Here’s how:

• Open Alfred and go to ‘preferences’ (the shortcut is ‘Apple’ and ‘,’)
• Go to ‘features‘ then ‘custom searches‘

• Type the following into the first box, replacing ‘journalism.co.uk’ with your site URL.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site:journalism.co.uk%20{query}

• Fill in the other fields, choosing a shortcut for your site. For example, I picked the letter J so when I open Alfred (‘alt’ and ‘space’) I can type ‘J’ and then my keyword search. Alfred launches Chrome and displays the search results.

That saves me typing site:journalism.co.uk every time I need to search.

There is more on Alfred’s custom search here.

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#Tip of the day for journalists: Add Twitter search to your browser

Image by shawncampbell on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Today’s tip is to add a Twitter address bar search browser extension. That will mean you can search Twitter from the search bar at the top of your web browser.

The Firefox extension is at this link, or you can use the search dropdown to ‘manage search engines’ and access this search option and more.

The Chrome extension is at this link. This extension adds a search bar to Chrome (which will appear as a magnifying glass logo), with Twitter as one of the options.

You can carryout hashtag searches, user searches or enter Twitter advanced operators. For more on searching social media see this guide.

You might also like to add a Creative Commons Search option to Firefox, which was Monday’s tip of the day.

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#Tip of the day for journalists: Add Creative Commons Search to your browser

Image by Yohei Yamashita on Flickr. Some rights reserved

Today’s tip for journalists is to add the Creative Commons Search to Firefox.

Creative Commons images and other content can be used by news sites and blogs free of charge. Here at Journalism.co.uk we regularly use images shared with Creative Commons licences on Flickr and other sites.

Those who use such images will no doubt be aware of the Creative Commons Search. Did you know there is an option that allows you to add the search to the Firefox browser?

To add the option, go follow the link near the bottom of this Creative Commons Search page. You can then select the CC Search option and speed up the process of finding images.

When searching for Creative Commons content, don’t forget to tick the box that includes results that can be used for commercial purposes.

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#Tip of the day for journalists: Search for open government data

Image by Ivy Dawned on Flickr. Some rights reserved

Here’s a tip from Paul Bradshaw, academic and the journalist behind the Online Journalism Blog and Help Me Investigate:

Here’s a useful search if you’re looking for open government data: google.co.uk/search?q=inurl…

— Paul Bradshaw (@paulbradshaw) January 30, 2013

He suggests using Google advanced operators to search .gov.uk sites with the word ‘open’ in the URL.

Want to take your online research to the next level? Take a look at this one-day course which teaches advanced online research skills.

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#Tip of the day for journalists: Check analytics to see what people are searching for

Do you ever check your site’s analytics to see what people are searching for?  Mindy McAdams has and provides an interesting explainer on her Teaching Online Journalism blog.

McAdams says that searches can help you write about what your audience is searching for.

If people are coming to your site because of a search, you should think about whether you might want to offer them more on that topic. I don’t mean you should add stuff that doesn’t match the mission or purpose of your blog — but think about whether it makes sense for you to beef up your content to satisfy those searchers.

Her post reminded me of this great example of how Homicide Watch reports from analytics.

The site’s founder Laura Amico checked what her readers had been searching for one afternoon in Google Analytics one afternoon and got a scoop.

She found that readers of Homicide Watch DC, a site she set up in September 2010 to report on murders in Washington DC, were looking for details of an unreported murder.

There’s more on that story here.

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link.

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#Tip of the day for journalists: Save this list of research databases

US site for journalists Poynter has compiled a list of research sites you can use when working on an in-depth story.

The post explains that many academics are publishing their research online as “the world of scholarship is creeping toward greater openness”.

The post’s author John Wihbey states:

It’s also important to acknowledge that conventional web searches — just Googling it — won’t necessarily turn up the best research materials; search algorithms don’t always prominently highlight studies and reports that are seldom linked to or visited.

Wihbey recommends a number of sites, including Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic Search. Some sites are US specific. The full list is at this link.

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link.

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