As part of an ongoing series on recent graduates who have gone into online journalism, Midlands News Association online journalist Todd Nash talks about what got him the job, what it involves, and where it might go next. (Disclosure: I taught Todd)

I started as a Community Moderator for guardian.co.uk shortly after graduating with First Class Honours from a Media and Communications (Journalism) degree at Birmingham City University. My new media experience, which was largely inspired by an Online Journalism module, appealed to my employers as did the fact that I had an interest in comments on newspaper websites and had written my dissertation on the subject.

Since then, I’ve moved on to an Online Journalism role with MNA Digital and the role involves taking responsibility for the social media output of the Express & Star and Shropshire Star, as well as looking after the editorial content for the jobs, property and motors sections of both newspaper websites.

I’d say that the biggest part that my education had to play in getting this job and the work that I’ve done here so far, was the inspiration that I had from my education to attempt things on my own. I used my blog to try out new ways of reporting, used social media and had put place my knowledge of the medium at guardian.co.uk and had knowledge of building sites, purely from my blogs.

I see my role developing hugely in the future. Social media does not stand still; just a couple of years ago MySpace was the place to be and Twitter was practically unheard of. Part of my role is ensuring that my websites don’t get left behind where this is concerned.

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If you were following the Jan Moir-Stephen Gateley story that was all over Twitter today you may have come across a Twitter account claiming to be Jan Moir herself – @janmoir_uk. It wasn’t her – but it was a convincing attempt, and I thought it might be worth picking out how I and other Twitter users tried to work out the account’s legitimacy.

The too-good-to-be-true test

The first test in these cases is the too-good-to-be-true test, and this works on a number of levels. Jan Moir tweeting in itself was a great story – but not completely unbelievable. Her second tweet said “I have been advised by my editor to create a twitter account and offer my sincere apologies for any upset and distress i have caus” [sic] – a superficially plausible story. Would you buy it?

But there were some other too-good-to-be-true claims in her tweets. One said “My son is gay. I am not homophobic. Please read my article properly.” Does Jan Moir have a son? Is he gay? Would she announce it on Twitter?

And finally, the promise of a formal apology and the tweeted apology itself ticked the too-good-to-be-true box.

Style and personality

Jan is a journalist, and so is unlikely to use a lower case ‘i’ to refer to herself, regardless of the medium. She would also probably capitalise Twitter. And a later tweet uses the phrase “heart felt” which should be one word. Not all journalists have impeccable grammar, but this should raise suspicions.

More suspicious is the fact that the link she gives to her statement takes us to… The Independent newspaper. Would a Mail journalist link to a competitor?

Finally, Jan uses the hashtag #janmoir – unusual on someone’s first day using Twitter – although you might suggest a more experienced user was guiding her.

Who’s following?

One of the first things to check with a potential hoax account is who is following them. If they genuinely work for the Daily Mail, you could expect other staffers to be following them, or official accounts. That wasn’t the case here.

Who’s she following?

Likewise, is this account following the sort of people you would expect, particularly the first few? In this case the first person followed was an American footballer, followed by a US government agency, ReadWriteWeb, Wired magazine, the LA Lakers, 50 Cent, Flaming Lips and various others. That was a real alarm bell. At best they might have been followed on her behalf by a tech support person who was helping her, but more likely is that the hoaxer is either leaving clues or – more likely – following accounts that are likely to get them noticed. The numbers of tech websites in the list suggest that the latter was the case.

Messages to/about them

Who’s talking to this account? What are they saying? Again, if this person genuinely works for the Daily Mail there may be others there talking to her; conversely, if this is a fake account people may be pointing to proof of that fakery.

Suspicious behaviour (bait)

This is similar to the too-good-to-be-true test – the promise of a formal apology and an appearance on Channel 4 News were teases – bait to get people to retweet. And it worked. But ask: why was Channel 4 not talking about the interview they’d supposedly obtained? (After all, this was the top trend on Twitter for a while) Why was Jan Moir issuing apologies on Twitter, and not in a more ‘official’ setting? What was lacking here was…

External verification

This was what really sealed it with @janmoir_uk  - she said she would be appearing on Channel 4 News that night to apologise. A couple of Twitter users asked Channel 4 reporter Krishnan Guru-Murthy whether this was true. “No,” he replied, twice (h/t Todd Nash for pointing me to this). Of course you could have called The Daily Mail to check, too…

Anything else?

What techniques have you used to verify the authenticity of Twitter accounts? It would be great to compile more examples.

UPDATE: It seems even ‘Verified’ Twitter accounts can turn out to be fakes, such as that pretending to be the wife of Rupert Murdoch, Wendi Deng. Note her tweet below about the clues she left.

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Guardian community moderator Todd Nash* makes an interesting suggestion on his blog about the difficulties journalists face in wading through comments on their stories:

“there is potential for news stories to come out of user activity on newspaper websites. Yet, as far as I know, it is not a particularly well-utlised area. Time is clearly an issue here. How many journalists have time to scroll through all of their comments to search for something that could well resemble a needle in a haystack? It was commented that, ironically, freelancers may make better use of this resource as their need for that next story is greater than their staff member counterparts.

“The moderation team at guardian.co.uk now has a Twitter feed @GuardianVoices which highlights good individual comments and interesting debate. Could they be used as a tool to collect potential leads? After all, moderators will already be reading the majority of content of the publication they work for. However, it would require a rather different mindset to look out for story leads compared to the more usual role of finding and removing offensive content.”

It’s an idea worth considering – although, as Todd himself concludes:

“Increased interactivity with users builds trust, which in turn produces a higher class of debate and, with it, more opportunities for follow-up articles. Perhaps it is now time for the journalists to take inspiration from their communities as well.”

That aside, could this work? Could moderators work to identify leads?

*Disclosure: he’s also a former student of mine

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Good to see final year journalism degree student Todd Nash has his hoax-spotting eyes on. He’s kicked off a new journalism blog with an overview of some pretty obvious photoshopping that managed to get past the people at Sky News:

“The best pranks are the ones where the victim has absolutely no idea what is happening and this is true here. Some photoshop happy forummers on the Football365 Forum began adapting marathon photos from Flickr, Google Images and anywhere else they could get their hands on them.

“They then sent them in to the unsuspecting Sky News team with spectacular results:

“How they didn’t see Tron amazes me.

“A cruel sense of humour from Daniel Carr as the Grim Reaper makes an appearance (and not as a runner)”

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A great way to start the week: my students are back from their Easter break, and one (Todd Nash) has not only posted a story about police being unable to keep up with 999 calls, but also created a witty video of ‘how to be an online journalist’, with royalty-free music to boot (note: Corbis is mentioned in the video – students are allowed to use image banks as long as they cost it up for a professional operation).

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