Storyful is one of the few companies that has figured out a way to monetize the social media platform Twitter by offering a subscription service by which news organizations and other companies can get access to vetted user-generated content and reports from both journalists and eyewitnesses on a variety of social networks (usually Twitter, but also Facebook, YouTube, etc.).

Now, for the first time, Storyful is giving the world an inside look into how it verifies the contents it passes along to its clients.

In a blog entry published on Wednesday, Storyful says it looks at every piece of content discovered on social platforms with a skeptical eye.

“We adopt a natural skepticism to every item of content we discover,” Storyful’s Malachy Browne wrote. “Verification is a cornerstone of our work, and it has to be.”

Storyful’s verification process includes simple techniques, like looking at the history of a person’s account, to the complex, like looking for shadows in photos to see if they correspond with the time of day a photo is alleged to have been taken. The fine tooth comb Storyful uses to verify its media lends credibility to what the company pushes to its clients, and it also acts as a sort of fail-safe that keeps the company from passing along bad information.

Newsrooms would be wise to incorporate some of Storyful’s verification processes into their own user-generated content and social media strategies. The strategies will help newsrooms better vet the content that is sent to their newsroom or discovered by their producers and editors.

Click here to read “Inside Storyful – Storyful’s verification process“