They actually didnt verify anything. Plenty of Twitter accounts verified the story some 10-ish hours before NYT reported this ground breaking information. These reporters are sitting behind their desks (like you and me) and are sifting through Twitter feed and they stumbled upon what was already geolocated video+ several images of missiles. But this became a story only when a big media (in this case NYT) published it.
Are you saying they didn't do the analysis they said they did, but copied it from someone else? I agree the analysis doesn't "verify", but it did lend more credibility to the (then) suspected root cause. It had value.
They weren't claiming they were the source of the posted videos.
Yes the flight path + sound analysis and all these things were already on Twitter.
So, NYT article should be more "how we copied Twitter users without crediting them"
No, in addition to verifying one telegram video* the NYT paid for satellite imagery to verify other parts of the story and I believe they were given the CCTV footage showing both launches independently. After the reported arrest of an earlier videographer they are understandably vague in the provenance of the later video.
Same thing with Theranos. It was people on the internet who discovered theranos was shady and WSJ was the one that "broke the story". At least the WSJ acknowledged and credited the people on the internet who first pointed out the shadiness at theranos.
