How do major media outlets get important, confidential news tips and document leaks in today’s hyper-vigilant, surveillance-mad environment? Are all newspapers and electronic media going the Wikileaks route, making it easier for government whistle-blowers and concerned citizens to share information without revealing who they are?

Here’s what I’ve learned, via some simple research: Approaches to soliciting and accepting news tips vary widely among print and electronic media.

Among the top 10 American newspapers [by circulation], the New York Times, the Washington Post, and USA Today appear to be the only three that offer a way to submit documents and tips via identity-protecting encryption.

New York Times

On its website, the New York Times begins by inviting news tips [as newspapers have done for centuries], and giving examples of how a good news tip is phrased:

Here is evidence that this government representative is breaking the law.

Here is proof that this company is conducting itself unethically.

Then, the NYT offers three ways to submit a news tip anonymously:

WhatsApp is a free messaging app owned by Facebook that allows full end-to-end encryption for its service. Only the sender and recipient can read messages, photos, videos, voice messages, documents and calls. Though you can limit some account information shared to Facebook, WhatsApp still keeps records of the phone numbers involved in the exchange and the users’ metadata, including timestamps on messages.

Signal: The free and open source messaging app offers end-to-end encryption to send messages, photos, video and calls. Signal retains only your phone number, when you first registered with the service and when you were last active. No metadata surrounding communications is retained. The app also allow messages to self-destruct, removing them from the recipient’s and sender’s phones (once it’s been seen) after a set amount of time.

Email: You may send us encrypted or unencrypted emails. Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is an encryption software that allows you to send encrypted emails and documents. Mailvelope is a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox that makes it easy to use PGP. The extension will only encrypt the contents of the email you’re sending. Mailvelope will not encrypt metadata such as sender, recipient, subject or information about when the email was sent. This metadata will be available to your email provider

Washington Post

WaPo goes several steps further than the NYT, offering six news-tip channels. Upfront, it warns that, “No system is 100% secure, but these tools attempt to create a more secure environment than that provided by normal communication channels for encrypted submissions.”

In addition to WhatsApp, Signal and user-encrypted email [Pretty Good Privacy, or PGP], WaPO offers:

Peerio: A free, end-to-end encrypted messaging app, which allows you to communicate directly with The Post. Peerio provides fully encrypted cloud storage for files. You can transfer files to The Post as large as 400 megabytes.

Pidgin: This is a secure, desktop messaging app. When used with the OTR (off-the-record) plug-in, it can be used to send encrypted messages. We recommend you also turn off logging for added security. Pidgin also supports encrypted file transfers.

SecureDrop: An open-source whistleblower submission system [created by the Freedom of the Press Foundation] that media organizations can use to securely accept documents from and communicate with anonymous sources. SecureDrop submissions are entirely encrypted and do not include any identifying metadata

USA Today

USA Today suggests that anonymous whistle-blowers and tipsters use Secure Drop to send documents and news items to the parent paper and/or to its 109 affiliates across the country. [Although USA Today offers encryption, it has been making a concerted effort not to quote anonymous sources. More comments on that later.]

Wall Street Journal

Interesting story: In 2011, the Wall Street Journal launched its own, homegrown rival to Wikileaks. The Journal named the system SafeHouse.  The system faced immediate criticism for its weak security measures. One cybersecurity analyst called it  “a ‘total anonymity failure’ that could compromise the security of whistleblowers.”  WSJ quickly vowed to upgrade it.  At some point though – I am still trying to track down exactly when and why – WSJ shut down SafeHouse. The WSJ website now directs tipsters to send information to newseditors@wsj.com. This is a standard email address, and submitters are required to include their contact information.

LA Times

The LA Times invites news tips, but offers only a conventional e-mail address for submissions. The only nod to confidentiality is that personal contact information is optional.

New York Post, Newsday, Chicago Tribune, Daily News, amNewYork

Surprisingly, the often sensational  New York Post simply states, “Send us your news tips,” and includes an old-school email form. Other papers ranked in America’s top 10 also seem not to expect big news to arrive in a 21^st Century cyber-secure style, which I interpret to mean that they don’t expect to break big news based on confidential information [not that there’s anything wrong with that]: Newsday appears uninterested in anonymous tips, calling its “tip” page “User Article,” requiring that all contact information be included, and offering a fill-in section that allows up to 5,000 characters. The Chicago Tribune invites user-submitted “breaking news tip and ideas” in a personal-info-optional on-line form. The New York Daily News instructs readers, in small type, to send news tips to the City Desk.  On the amNewYork website, you’ll find the same personal-info-required form that appears on many other newspaper websites.

Web-based, cable and broadcast media

My limited research into a sampling of non-print media makes me think that these outlets don’t rely that much on anonymous tipsters.

MSNBC, whose lineup of commentators and reporters are often intent on breaking “exclusive” stories, encourages audience members to “Send it to Rachel” [Maddow], or any other of its reporters, using either conventional email, Twitter,  WhatsApp or Telegram, another messaging encryption app.

Fox News answers the question, “Where can I send story questions, corrections, or news tips?” by listing an email address.

CNN maintains a phone line expressly for reporting tips, but it’s a bit hard to find. On its iReport page, CNN says:

Is breaking news happening near you? We’d like you to share your images and information with CNN.

Once you’re in a safe place, you can get your story to us by posting on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook with the hashtag #CNNiReport. A CNN producer may contact you, so keep an eye out for notifications from your social accounts.

You can also post your photos and stories in the box below. [Blogger’s note: No such box sighted]

Please note: Breaking news situations can be unpredictable and sometimes dangerous. Do not expose yourself to a risky or potentially dangerous situation.

CBS News quietly lists its street mailing address, and suggests that you “email us an investigative tip.”

NPR approaches news tips by asking:  Do You Have A Tip? If you have solid tips or documents on stories we should probe, please submit them to NPR’s investigative team.

Huffington Post suggests that its readers “Give Us The Scoop.”

Do you have a news tip, firsthand account, information or photos about a news story to pass along to our editors? Send a news tip or email us at scoop@huffingtonpost.com

Old school

It’s easy to overlook one additional mechanism for anonymous tippers that remains workable and effective: snail mail. Just about all of the news organizations I looked at for this post included the US Postal Service as a means of getting information to them securely. With the obvious caveat of not including one’s name and return address, the New York Times and the Washington Post both note that dropping a document or tip into a corner mailbox still works. Isn’t that amazing and wonderful? With all of the electronic surveillance and hacking that we worry about, we can still trust the US Postal Service to respect the privacy of paper mail. Score one for old school.

What does it mean, if anything?

I freely acknowledge that this roundup is far from exhaustive. I’ve looked at only a small sample. I didn’t find much on international new organizations, like the BBC or The Times of London. And I wouldn’t feel comfortable commenting on news organizations that reflect a culture I don’t know. So everything I’m about to write is opinion and speculation.

I’m just wondering: Why have some news outlets taken the extra step of enabling whistle-blowers to send them encrypted information, while others have not.

I’m not suggesting that all news organizations should be enabling anonymous whistle-blowers by offering encrypted messaging services. But it seems to me that the organizations that make anonymity possible may have several motivations: To be in the vanguard of breaking news – which can be economically advantageous; and to view the role of the press as a noble bastion against government secrecy—the protector of democracy when no one else will step forward. [And wow, is that important right now.]

That is not to denigrate all news outlets who do not offer sophisticated news-tip formats. It seems to me that some smaller organizations just don’t have the resources to follow up on the big revelations, so they leave that to others and simply try to reliably pass along others’ reporting. Some probably depend more on inside sources and experts cultivated by their reporters and get valuable, breaking, background information that way. Or, perhaps, they’ve seen enough traditionally delivered news tips that were bogus or crackpot to not want to encourage more. And maybe some sense that their readers and followers simply aren’t likely to have the goods.

Some people want to ban the use of anonymous sources, including our president. [Good luck with that.] But some news organizations are trying. In an article in New York Magazine, writer Kurt Anderson says:

In the last year, USA Today has reduced its use of unnamed sources to an average of fewer than one a day. If you want a sense of how banning anonymous sources might transform journalism, USA Today provides a pretty good preview. As The New Yorker’s David Remnick said when I asked him about his reporter Seymour Hersh’s use of anonymous sources, “How many national-security stories has USA Today broken?”

One thing seems true, though: As we see our current president and his whisperers embarking on a path of secrecy and suppression of the free press, getting the real story is going to be more important than ever – even if it comes in through a hidden back door.

The post News tips in a new world: To encrypt or not to encrypt? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In a break with its long tradition of endorsing Republicans, The Cincinnati Enquirer has endorsed Hillary Clinton for President.

The Enquirer published its endorsement on September 23, 2016. Acknowledging this year’s break from its staunchly Republican past, the editorial board said:

The Enquirer has supported Republicans for president for almost a century – a tradition this editorial board doesn’t take lightly. But this is not a traditional race, and these are not traditional times. Our country needs calm, thoughtful leadership to deal with the challenges we face at home and abroad. We need a leader who will bring out the best in all Americans, not the worst.

That’s why there is only one choice when we elect a president in November: Hillary Clinton.

Clinton’s track record of governing starkly contrasts with Trump’s total lack of experience in government, says the Enquirer.

As senator of New York, she earned respect in Congress by working across the aisle and crafting bills with conservative lawmakers. She helped 9/11 first responders get the care they needed after suffering health effects from their time at Ground Zero, and helped expand health care and family leave for military families. Clinton has spent more than 40 years fighting for women’s and children’s rights. As first lady, she unsuccessfully fought for universal health care but helped to create the Children’s Health Insurance Program that provides health care to more than 8 million kids today. She has been a proponent of closing the gender wage gap and has stood up for LGBT rights domestically and internationally, including advocating for marriage equality.

By contrast, the Enquirer calls Trump “a clear and present danger to our country:”

Trump has no foreign policy experience, and the fact that he doesn’t recognize it – instead insisting that, “I know more about ISIS than the generals do” – is even more troubling. His wild threats to blow Iranian ships out of the water if they make rude gestures at U.S. ships is just the type of reckless, cowboy diplomacy Americans should fear from a Trump presidency. Clinton has been criticized for being overly cautious when it comes to sending our troops into battle, but there is a measured way to react to the world’s problems. Do we really want someone in charge of our military and nuclear codes who has an impulse control problem? The fact that so many top military and national security officials are not supporting Trump speaks volumes.

And, while acknowledging its reservations about Clinton, the Enquirer adds, “our reservations about Clinton pale in comparison to our fears about Trump.”:

This editorial board has been consistent in its criticism of his policies and temperament beginning with the Republican primary. We’ve condemned his childish insults; offensive remarks to women, Hispanics and African-Americans; and the way he has played on many Americans’ fears and prejudices to further himself politically. Trump brands himself as an outsider untainted by special interests, but we see a man utterly corrupted by self-interest. His narcissistic bid for the presidency is more about making himself great than America. Trump tears our country and many of its people down with his words so that he can build himself up. What else are we left to believe about a man who tells the American public that he alone can fix what ails us?

While Clinton has been relentlessly challenged about her honesty, Trump was the primary propagator of arguably the biggest lie of the past eight years: that Obama wasn’t born in the United States. Trump has played fast and loose with the support of white supremacist groups. He has praised some of our country’s most dangerous enemies – see Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un and Saddam Hussein – while insulting a sitting president, our military generals, a Gold Star family and prisoners of war like Sen. John McCain. Of late, Trump has toned down his divisive rhetoric, sticking to carefully constructed scripts and teleprompters. But going two weeks without saying something misogynistic, racist or xenophobic is hardly a qualification for the most important job in the world. Why should anyone believe that a Trump presidency would look markedly different from his offensive, erratic, stance-shifting presidential campaign?

The editorial board specifically calls out Trump for being “the primary propagator of arguably the biggest lie of the past eight years: that Obama wasn’t born in the United States.” It concludes by saying this:

In these uncertain times, America needs a brave leader, not bravado. Real solutions, not paper-thin promises. A clear eye toward the future, not a cynical appeal to the good old days.

Hillary Clinton has her faults, certainly, but she has spent a lifetime working to improve the lives of Americans both inside and outside of Washington. It’s time to elect the first female U.S. president – not because she’s a woman, but because she’s hands-down the most qualified choice.

The post Traditionally Republican Cincinnati Enquirer endorses Clinton over Trump appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Whenever I think my progressive values might need a reality check, all I have to do is go to the online version of my local daily newspaper and read some of the comments readers post about various articles.

I should know not to do this. My blood pressure has been high recently, and this can’t help. But many of the people who post about articles (the St. Louis Post-Dispatch calls some of them “top commenters” and rewards them with a star) have such a different world view than I do that it’s become almost my dirty little secret that I check in on them periodically.

My latest foray into this journalistic underbelly occurred when I read an online article headlined “St. Charles County parents sentenced to 7 years in prison for caging autistic son.”  The article described how Terry and Victoria Smith, who were convicted of child endangerment after their severely autistic six-year-old son was discovered in a crib/cage in their basement, received the maximum sentence allowed. They were also fined $500 each.

Never mind that the Smiths have five other children at home. Never mind that the family physician testified that all of the children were well cared for. Never mind that no one cared enough to help this family and provide an appropriate safe bed for their child. Never mind that the parents have never been in trouble with the law before.

Early posters on the “commentverse” went into gear immediately. Some samples: “These parents are horrible, horrible people.” “Get these two nut jobs out of parenting business.” “Not long enough.” “Should have been 70 years.” “These people should not get the chance to be free ever again.” “This is what the parents deserve.”

There are so many disturbing things about this that it’s hard to know where to start. First, with the sentence: six little children will be separated from their parents and from each other for a very long time. It will cost the state of Missouri much more to provide for these kids in foster care than it would have cost to provide some help for the family. And when the parents get out of prison, they will be felons. Good luck getting a job with that on your record.

Wouldn’t it have been smarter, kinder and more economical to provide some help for this family? The parents are probably not stupid, they were probably completely overwhelmed by the needs of their children and their inability to provide for them.

Second, about the comments: I realize that with this piece I, too, am commenting on the article (Occasional Planet does not need to give me a star). Those who share my views, and those who don’t, can respond. I can take being called a bleeding-heart liberal, or worse. What I have difficulty with is the level of hate and venom many of the Post commenters directed toward this family.

For those who think seven years in prison for two people who made one serious parenting mistake is an appropriate sentence, I have a suggestion: do something to help one of the Smith children while their parents are away. They are the ones who will be paying the penalty for this decision, which masquerades as justice in St. Charles County, Missouri.

The post On-line commenters: The underbelly of journalism and justice in Missouri appeared first on Occasional Planet.