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Credit: Screenshot from Panoramio

Social media is becoming an increasingly important source of photos, videos and information from eyewitnesses for journalists covering breaking news.

Newsrooms around the world are using eyewitness media in their reports, but some are being more careful than others when it comes to fact-checking the content of these posts.

At the FDLive event at The New York Times in April, Claire Wardle of the Eyewitness Media Hub outlined the process news organisations should be following when working with materials from social media, summarised in this post from First Draft.

She also pointed to a number of tools and resources that can help along the way, including Who.Is searches, Wolfram Alpha, and Izitru.

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