Conducting 15-minute background searches on sources

By Tara Haelle

How can you be sure your expert source doesn’t have a shady past? What if your lead anecdote has a history of insurance fraud? Are you absolutely certain that the physician who gave you such quotable quotes during your interview actually is a doctor? (Don’t snicker — dozens of reporters have been duped before!)

The tip sheet below, based on an AHCJ webinar with Kate Howard of the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, provides tips on how to vet every person you interview or otherwise quote in your work, with the goal of reducing the risk of embarrassment to you, your editors and your publication.

Tip #1: Never assume ANYONE is already vetted unless you’ve done it yourself. What’s the danger in relying on others — including other journalists — to presume a source is legit? Consider the case of “sexology expert” and “doctor” Damian Jacob Markiewicz Sendler, who managed to get himself quoted in dozens of publications despite never even attending medical school. He duped enough journal editors and peer reviewers to end up with a bibliography cataloged on PubMed. Had it not been for a Gizmodo exposé in March 2019, Sendler likely would still be spouting his nonsense in major publications. Sendler’s fraud is one that may have required more than 15 minutes to uncover, but this is a cautionary tale regardless.

Tip #2: Take responsibility for the mistakes you do make. This is an obvious one, but sometimes it helps to drive home what should be self-evident. When you do make a mistake, it harms your credibility. The only way to rectify that damage is transparency, taking responsibility and undertaking corrective follow-up reporting. Howard’s own mistake in the webinar is a great example.

Tip #3: Consider what you specifically need to check out with each source. “Every person must be checked,” Howard said. “But every person doesn’t need every check.” Few of us are angels, and you don’t need to be sure every source you interview has never run a red light. But, if you’re interviewing a bus driver for a daycare center, you probably DO need to be sure they haven’t run a red light before including them in your story.

Also, recognize that a shady incident in someone’s past doesn’t necessarily disqualify them as a source: It depends on why you need them and what they have to say. But being aware of past incidents means they won’t catch you by surprise. Then you can to decide whether and how to disclose it.

Remember when pulmonologist David Dao was violently dragged off a United Airlines flight in 2017. Though he wasn’t a source in the traditional sense (the story was about him), it didn’t take long to learn he had a past conviction related to drug prescriptions. Was that relevant to what happened to him? No. Should it have been disclosed? Folks can debate that in journalism classrooms and newsrooms. Should journalists reporting the United story have at least been aware of it? Probably, if only to be prepared when it inevitably came out.

So, for each source, consider why you are including them and what aspects of their background might be relevant to check out.

Tip #4: Make things easy on yourself with a resource list of websites and phone numbers. The websites or agencies that a local general health journalist at a newspaper in Detroit will need to consult to vet sources will vary from what a national journalist covering insurance policy in D.C. will need. A starter list of sources is provided below, but you’ll likely need to figure out additional sites, organizations, agencies, etc. specific to your beat and geographic coverage area, especially if you’re a local or state-based journalist.

A national journalist may need a document containing the contact info and website for every state’s medical board, for example, while a California-based journalist may need only the California board but also a list of county health departments throughout the state. Taking an afternoon to gather all these resources in one document or folder will go a LONG way toward reducing the time it takes later to perform a quick-vetting of sources.

Tip #5: Google, Google, Google! Yes, this is an obvious first step, but make your search worth it:

Search their whole name, in and out of quotes, and then variations of their name (Robert, Bob, Bobby), plus initials.
Search their affiliated organization, in and out of quotes, plus with and without the city and state.
Search their last name and the organization name together.
Search their whole name in quotes with the word “mugshot.” (For physicians, consider “malpractice” or similar words.)
Read beyond the first page of results, at least 3-5 pages in.
Check several pages of the Google Images, Videos, and News results as well. Sometimes things show up here that don’t appear in a general search.
Search for potentially easy misspellings of their name: Elisabeth for Elizabeth, Muller for Miller, Stien for Stein, etc.
What happens if they have a common name? There’s not always a lot you can do. If you’re searching for a family doctor named Bob Miller, it may be a slog and you may have to give up a few pages in. The important part is due diligence and trying at least what your most meticulous critics would do.

Tip #6: Dive into the cesspool of social media. You don’t need to scour every corner of Reddit — you will need your sanity intact to finish your story — but at least cruise through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram:

On Facebook, read their “About” page for their jobs and relationships. If their friends are public, skim the list to see if anyone jumps out, especially for politicians, CEOs and other high-profile individuals. Skim any public posts for possible red flags of racism, misogyny, inappropriate behavior or humor, potential conflicts of interest, etc.

On Twitter, use the Advanced Search to look at tweets before they became high profile. Click their “Likes” tab and the “Tweets & replies” tab to see what they “favorite” and how they respond to people in one-on-one conversations that aren’t necessarily showing up in the regular timeline.

On LinkedIn, check out previous jobs, titles and business names that you may want to investigate (depending on the person). LinkedIn also may reveal possible conflicts of interest. Just being linked isn’t evidence of a COI, of course, but if you discover patterns that raise questions, you can address then during your interview or additional online searches. NOTE: If you don’t want the person you’re searching to know you saw their profile, hide your profile before searching.

Also, sign up for LinkedIn For Journalists.

Tip #7: Check professional licenses and disciplinary actions as possible. The sites for checking the license of a doctor, nurse, dentist, etc. will vary from state to state. You may need to check multiple board sites if you need to confirm that a physician is certified in a particular specialty. Uncovering disciplinary actions can be tougher and access varies greatly by state: information on malpractice suits, censures or other disciplinary action may or may not be publicly available. This is one of those tasks you may want to invest a few hours in to make it easier for each search later.

Tip #8: See what they’ve said in other stories. If you have access to Lexis Nexis, search for other stories where they were quoted. (Note that AHCJ members and freelance journalists can get discounted Lexis Nexis access.) If you’re a staffer at a specific publication, check your publication’s archives to see what they’ve said before: Did they contradict themselves? Have they given the same quote five times over the years? If you’re a freelancer, rely on the News tab of Google searches to find other articles where their names appear.

If you notice while searching that they are quoted in a lot of articles about a wide variety of different topics, that could be a red flag. That sexology doc sure seemed to have a broad range of “expertise.” Also, if you notice the same person quoted over and over, consider whether you really need them for your story and whether a less used source would be better.

Tip #9: Check court records. This task could bog you down if your source’s name is common, but it’s usually a quick check on county, state and federal websites. Your first stop should be PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records), which anyone can register to use. It’s not free, but most fees are modest (or free to you if you work for a news organization with an account) — except searches, so be careful. CourtListener is a free legal research site with a Recap search function that includes millions of PACER records.

Civil courts typically deal with marriage, child support, divorce filings, debt collection attempts and order of protection requests. Criminal courts will have traffic violations in addition to other criminal cases. The caveat is that this one could get time-consuming if there isn’t a searchable site for the jurisdiction you need. Local journalists can head to the courthouse. National ones may have to call the courthouse or make a decision about how important it is to do this part of the check.

Tip #10: Check businesses and nonprofits. Be sure the business they say they own is real. These searches will depend on your state, but all nonprofit 990s can be searched on ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer.

Tip #11: Check military records for service members. You can FOIA releasable personnel record information on members of the military by contacting the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis at (314) 801-0816 (7 a.m. to 5 p.m. CST). Fax record requests to (314) 801-0763 with all information you have, such as military branch and dates of service, date of birth and SSN. Ask for “all information releasable under FOIA, compiled in a Form 13164, Information Releasable Under the Freedom of Information Act” and include “Time Sensitive/Expedited Media” on the request. For congressional office inquiries, fax or email the National Archives at congressional.status@nara.gov.

Tip #12: Go old-school. Sometimes shoe-leather journalism is the way to go, at least for local folks. Phone books, city guides, church directories and similar sources can be helpful too.

Tip #13: Create mini-checklists. Since you don’t necessarily need to do every check for every source, it may help to have checklists for similar types of sources, such as a list of what to check for a politician, what to check for a study author, what to check for an outside source researcher, what to check for a CEO, etc.

Tip #14: If something turns up, discuss it with your editor. We can’t offer a more detailed tip here because what you’ll do—disclose, drop the source, use the source without disclosing, etc.—will depend on the specific situation, journalistic ethics and publication policies.

Tip #15: If you mess up, take responsibility, be transparent and follow up. If you can’t do a follow-up story or the situation doesn’t merit one, at least add an editorial note to the story if it’s online or a correction, addendum or clarification if it’s a print piece.

Here are some other tips and resources compiled from Howard’s list and presentation and additional sources:

Military Service Records, Awards, and Unit Histories: A Guide to Locating Sources: A Congressional Research Service report.
CourtListener: Free legal research site with an extensive database of state and federal court opinions; their Recap site includes millions of PACER documents.
ExpertAccess: Discounted LexisNexis access for freelancers.
HospitalFinances.org: An AHCJ project.
LinkedIn for Journalists: Note that you’ll need to view a webinar offered quarterly to receive all the benefits.
LexisNexis discount: For AHCJ members.
National Sex Offender Public Website: A database maintained by the U.S. Department of Justice.
National Provider Identifier Registry: A CMS National Plan and Provider Enumeration System directory of active records of healthcare providers’ unique 10-digit NPIs, which identify them throughout their industry.
Open Secrets: The nonpartisan, independent, nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics provides federal campaign contributions, lobbying data and related analysis.
ProPublica’s database on Congress members’ voting records.
ProPublica’s Dollars for Docs database to check on financial payments that physicians have received from industry.
ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer.
ProPublica’s Prescriber Checkup for physicians’ prescribing habits.
Other potentially helpful ProPublica data sets.
Twitter’s Advanced Search.