Digital media outlets can improve the quality of journalism by using new tools such as the CSI-style verification of social media posts and by allowing the reader not only to comment but to correct articles, media researcher Kellie Riordan argues.

These methods are being used by both traditional media outlets such as the BBC and digital natives such as the US business site Quartz, which launched only in 2012 but is already competing with the Economist and Bloomberg.

Far from the internet destroying quality journalism, digital has given the media lots of new tools to improve it, Riordan says in her study, Accuracy, independence, and impartiality: How legacy media and digital natives approach standards in the digital age.

Riordan, an ABC journalist and the 2014 fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, questions whether traditional media impartiality is still as relevant in the digital age.

“In the digital age, one of the most complex challenges for media outlets is how to reshape the editorial responsibilities of journalism itself,” Riordan wrote in the Reuters Institute paper, published this week.

“Which journalistic standards, many devised last century, still fit in the digital age? And which standards form the basis of a new type of journalism being pioneered by hybrid news sites that have come of age in the digital era?”

In a series of interviews with editors of all types of publications, Riordan discovered that legacy media and digital natives alike were using the web to improve journalism. Despite the challenges publications face as the old print model collapses, she believes new and promising ways of working are developing.

Riordan found that by combining the best of the old editorial standards and new ways to establish credibility, journalists could create a new transparent form of the craft.

The BBC has a specialist team for analysing user-generated content, known as the UGC Hub. It uses tools such as Pipl, Topsy, GeoFeedia, TinEye, Wolfram Alpha and Dataminr to verify the masses of information coming into the newsroom via social media. The broadcaster’s journalists rely on the team to verify images, videos and posts before they use them in their stories.

But increasing demands to publish quickly mean the pressure to use new content without verification is intense.

“We often as a team come under pressure when a rival news organisation has seen something on social media and they are using that video or photo on TV,” says Trushar Barot of the UCG Hub. “A BBC TV producer will come running over, saying ‘Others are running it, why can’t we run it?’ Our answer is usually: ‘We’re aware of it and we’re still going through our checks.’ ”

Quartz is using “annotations”, which allow the readers to update and even correct stories.

Instead of leaving reader comments at the end of an article out of context, Quartz allowed readers to comment – even make corrections – right next to specific points in articles, and share those views with colleagues and friends.

“We look at every new annotation,” Quartz advises. “That’s because we want to absorb all your wisdom, respond when appropriate, and remove stuff that’s off-topic or abusive. We approve any annotation that makes a substantive contribution, and we don’t shy away from criticism.”

Corrections have been elevated to make the publisher more accountable, Riordan says.

When Grantland published a feature which was grossly insensitive to transgender people, the editor, Bill Simmons, did not just publish a short correction or apology tucked away where it could barely be seen, traditionally on page two in newspapers. He ran a lengthy retraction, spelling out the reasons he felt the piece failed the audience and the story’s subject, and commissioned a guest editorial about the image of transgender people in the media.

Riordan says: “The detail, honesty and fullness of the Grantland correction displayed the highest level of editorial integrity in order to restore trust in Grantland. Editor Bill Simmons was also careful not to lay the blame with the writer of the piece, but instead took full responsibility for the chain of events leading to the story’s publication.”

Riordan does warn of some trends which she says need careful monitoring to ensure they do not threaten standards: verification, native advertising and data journalism.

She says the blurring of the lines between advertising and editorial, and PR and journalism, is a risk to standards because it is not always clear to the audience if material is independent or brand-driven. BuzzFeed is using native advertising to fund its viral brand of journalism, but has come under fire for not always making clear which posts are editorial and which are brand-funded.

BuzzFeed has also been criticised for publishing information that later proved to be false.

Data journalism also has pitfalls, Riordan argues: “The way figures are selected, interpreted, and analysed affects how they are presented to the audience. What conclusions are drawn from data and how to present such findings remains a challenge.”