Verifying Audio Content

Verifying audio is harder than verifying text.

With text, you can copy a sentence, search it, and check a source in minutes.

With audio, you can’t. Whether it’s a podcast, a TV segment, an interview, or a debate, you have to do extra work before you can even start verifying:

• Listen to find the moment
• Rewind to catch the exact wording
• Take notes (or pull a quote)
• Grab the timestamp
• Then go look for sources

That’s why audio verification often doesn’t happen consistently. Not because producers don’t care. Because it’s slow, and there’s always a deadline.

The problem isn’t “misinformation” in the abstract. The problem is practical:

• Long recordings
• Lots of claims
• Limited time

If verifying audio is going to be normal, it has to be fast to answer basic questions:

• What exactly was said?
• Where exactly was it said?
• What source supports or contradicts it?

Audio isn’t impossible to verify. It’s just too time-consuming to do manually, episode after episode.