As I say often, I spend as much time standing down stories as I do standing them up. That means working out which stories are exaggerated, which stories people are promoting. I have to do this because people want to get donor dollars. I always check the sources back to the origination. I don't just read something on the Internet and think it must be true.
With my BBC training, I know a lot about which news agencies are trusted around the world. For instance, on Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, based in London, has proven itself to be pretty reliable. There are ones that I know I can trust. There are ones I know I have to be a bit cautious of.
Of course, you can triangulate. You get something from one news agency and you ask whether it's what you're hearing from people on the ground, whether it's confirming. For instance, governments often take a long time to confirm the number of people killed in an atrocity. Often NGOs based in a community have a much clearer idea. It's that kind of thing. My whole background has trained me on how to separate the signal from the noise.