Checking the facts on the Belle Apartments

WATCH: How reporter Lucinda Garbutt-Young checked details of her latest story about Belle Apartments.

Transcript

00:00Meta has taken away fact-checking, X as we know is a total game of its own, and

00:04citizen journalism is becoming more and more prominent. It's probably never been

00:09as hard but also never been as important to know that where you're getting your

00:12news from is accurate and reliable. So I thought I'd take you through how I

00:16verified facts for a story that I wrote recently. This is a story about the Bell

00:20apartment complex in Bruce. Now to catch you up to speed the Canberra Times has

00:24been covering stories about defects in the complex for a couple of years now.

00:28The most recent update is that the owners corporation believed they may have to

00:32cough up money to fix some of the apartments that weren't included in the

00:36government's rectification orders that they issued to the builder. The owners

00:39corporation were making some pretty big claims around the ACT government

00:43essentially not doing their job properly and so there was a lot to verify to make

00:47sure that everything in the article was true and it wasn't defamatory. First my

00:51colleague Brittany who previously covered the property round was the one

00:53that used to write on Bell so I had a detailed chat with her to learn what she

00:58knew about it fill in the blanks before I read up on some previous documents. I

01:02then got in contact with the owners corporation and I sat down with them for

01:06about two hours to hash out what was going on and make sure that I had my

01:10facts straight on what they were seeing from their side. But you can't stop at

01:14just that and take people's word for things. I then went through a long list

01:18of emails and documentation between the owners corporation, the government and

01:21other parties to make sure that I had timelines correct and that I knew

01:25everything that I needed to know about what was going on in the complex. Doesn't

01:29stop there though I then put questions to the ACT government for them to

01:32respond to and the responses were included in the article. This makes sure

01:36I haven't misunderstood anything from the owners corporation and that I'm not

01:39missing any joining dots in the process of writing the story. Finally I sent the

01:43story to colleagues, my property editor and the Canberra Times editor to make

01:48sure that they sign off on everything and are happy with what I've written.

01:51It then goes to producers to be edited before you see the news online and in

01:57the paper. For a story like the Bell property update which had a lot of

02:00moving parts this whole process took about three weeks on and off to do and I

02:04think it shows that it's important to check that where you're getting your

02:07news from is verified next time you look for it online.