Verify News Without Guessing: Check the Claim, Then Check the Evidence
About this check
What does “verify news” mean?
Start with the specific thing you want to check: a claim, an image, or a screenshot. A finished answer should do more than say “true” or “false.” It should give you a verdict, show how certain that verdict is, and point to the sources behind it. If the available evidence cannot settle the claim, the honest answer is inconclusive.
That is the standard to use whether you check a post manually or submit it to VOM.
How to verify a claim manually
1. Isolate the claim.
Rewrite what you saw as one checkable statement. Separate the claim from the reaction around it. For example, distinguish “this happened” from “this proves something else.” If a post contains several claims, check them separately rather than treating the whole post as one unit.
2. Preserve the original wording and context.
Copy the exact text where possible. Note who posted it, when it appeared, and whether it is presented as a report, quotation, opinion, or screenshot. A shortened sentence can change what is actually being claimed.
3. Search for the claim and its source.
Search the distinctive wording, then look for the source being cited. Compare the claim with the source itself rather than relying on a summary of it. Check whether the source addresses the same event, person, date, and wording.
4. Look for evidence that could change the answer.
Read beyond a headline or caption. Check the relevant text, statement, record, image, or video. Compare multiple accounts only after identifying what each one is actually evidence for. Agreement between repeated copies of the same post is not the same as independent support.
5. Check the conclusion against the evidence.
Write down what the evidence supports, what it contradicts, and what it does not establish. Do not turn missing information into a yes. If the sources leave the central claim unresolved, label it inconclusive instead of forcing a conclusion.
How to check an image or screenshot
For an image, identify the claim attached to it before judging the picture. Ask what the image is supposed to show, then look for the source and context that would support that interpretation. An image can be real while its caption or date is wrong, so check the claim around it as well as the image itself.
For a screenshot, preserve the full frame if you can. Read the text, identify the account or page it appears to come from, and look for the original post or document. Compare the visible wording with the original rather than treating the screenshot as the source. If you cannot establish where it came from or what it shows, stop at uncertainty.
The manual method stops working when the original source is unavailable, the evidence is incomplete, or the material cannot settle the claim. At that point, a confident answer would be stronger than the evidence allows. The useful result may simply be that the claim remains unverified.
A way to verify with VOM
VOM accepts voice input for submitting a claim to verify. Its verification response includes a verdict, a confidence score, and the sources it used. Verdicts can be true, false, or inconclusive, so a claim the evidence cannot settle is not forced into a yes-or-no answer. VOM uses real-time web search and cites the sources behind each verdict.
You can also upload an image. VOM assesses it as likely authentic, likely AI-generated, or unverifiable, and it reads the text inside a screenshot so a forwarded image can be checked without retyping it.
That gives you a way to start with the material in front of you—a spoken claim, an image, or a screenshot—while keeping the evidence visible for checking. The answer still depends on what the available sources can establish.