Each piece of UGC I would come across would take a different approach. For example, wartime footage and other more sensitive content would require more secrutiny, compared to less sensitive footage.

One the main methods I would use verify footage and other imagery was geolocation. Let’s take the videos from the cable car accident. In this case, I compared stills and shots from photos and videos to pre-existing, geolocated imagery (e.g. Google Earth, the cable car company website which provided images and details on location etc.) I are able to find matches that help us geolocate footage.

Once geolocated, I compare the content of the videos to NBC editorial of a situation. In this case, some of the footage took place at night, which confirmed to be true based on editorial that stated that rescues continued into the night.

Based off the following information, I then build a verification case which I would send to the NBC standards team to ensure footage met NBC standards, and to see if any editorial guidance is needed for the footage.