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How to Tell Us a Secret
21–30 of 120 posts
Re: How to Tell Us a Secret
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Sometimes we see a lot of news articles and news regarding X, Y, Z topic from anonymous sources, being passed as legit news and reliable, but when you examine the news in more details, nothing that backs up such claims can be found. Your implication is that because a story contains no named sources, the information is not legitimate, or not reliable. I would submit to you that this is exceedingly rare at a reputabl…
I have not found this to be true. There is tons of NYT articles that are factually wrong and have never been updated.
There are lots of things not to like about the Times, but if you report an inaccuracy to them, they will research it and correct it if needed.
Re: How to Tell Us a Secret
#23Does anyone else think that Anonymous tips can sometimes be a two-edged blade if claims are not properly backed up with facts? Sometimes we see a lot of news articles and news regarding X, Y, Z topic from anonymous sources, being passed as legit news and reliable, but when you examine the news in more details, nothing that backs up such claims can be found. How can this be addressed in a way that doesn't expose those…
I would argue that people giving their names are inclined to only say certain things given the situation they are in. That would seem to outright eliminate a great deal of things that it would be good to know.
Re: How to Tell Us a Secret
#24WhatsApp, with more than 1.2 billion active users, is one of the easiest ways to send secure information. “With WhatsApp, it’s as simple as sending a text message — but it’s encrypted,” Mr. Dance explained. I'm not a security expert but I think this is not exactly the best practice. This may have been true pre-fb acquisition but there has been changes to how WhatsApp behaves, especially server side storage. Also the…
Even if the message contents is encrypted, doesn't whatsapp still log the source and destination and their phone number and associate these with real persons? It should be trivial enough to figure out who delivered which tip by knowing a particular person sent something to that tip line.
Re: How to Tell Us a Secret
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Somebody illustrious and learned once said something to the effect that “if somebody tells you it's raining outside, and somebody else tells you the sun is shining, your job as a journalist isn't to report that some people say one thing whereas others say something else, your job as a journalist is to go look out the window and report what the weather is actually doing ”. What we have now is (mostly) talk-shows rough…
I heard another version of this the other day, a great line that's apparently some newspaper's motto: "If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out first ."
There's a great story behind that, of course:
https://medium.com/@Susys/lets-change-this-journalism-motto-...
Re: How to Tell Us a Secret
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anonymous sources that are quoted directly are known to the journalists ; their identity is only concealed from readers. This is about anonymously passing information for further investigation.
So you're saying that no journalist would accept a tip from someone who will not identify themselves?
They may 'accept the tip' and then try to verify/track it down with other sources (and say "I've heard X, can you confirm that for me?"), but no, a reputable journalist will never publish a quote from an anonymous source with no verification.
Re: How to Tell Us a Secret
#27RIP Aaron Swartz
Re: How to Tell Us a Secret
#28WhatsApp, with more than 1.2 billion active users, is one of the easiest ways to send secure information. “With WhatsApp, it’s as simple as sending a text message — but it’s encrypted,” Mr. Dance explained. I'm not a security expert but I think this is not exactly the best practice. This may have been true pre-fb acquisition but there has been changes to how WhatsApp behaves, especially server side storage. Also the…
How can I as an iOS user know that the message is encrypted? I don't see how.
Re: How to Tell Us a Secret
#29Does anyone else think that Anonymous tips can sometimes be a two-edged blade if claims are not properly backed up with facts? Sometimes we see a lot of news articles and news regarding X, Y, Z topic from anonymous sources, being passed as legit news and reliable, but when you examine the news in more details, nothing that backs up such claims can be found. How can this be addressed in a way that doesn't expose those…
> Sometimes we see a lot of news articles and news regarding X, Y, Z topic from anonymous sources, being passed as legit news and reliable, but when you examine the news in more details, nothing that backs up such claims can be found. Your implication is that because a story contains no named sources, the information is not legitimate, or not reliable. I would submit to you that this is exceedingly rare at a reputabl…
Agreed. That is why this is called a confidential tip line. For a journalist, a "tip" is an indication to investigate something.
Re: How to Tell Us a Secret
#30Does anyone else think that Anonymous tips can sometimes be a two-edged blade if claims are not properly backed up with facts? Sometimes we see a lot of news articles and news regarding X, Y, Z topic from anonymous sources, being passed as legit news and reliable, but when you examine the news in more details, nothing that backs up such claims can be found. How can this be addressed in a way that doesn't expose those…
> Sometimes we see a lot of news articles and news regarding X, Y, Z topic from anonymous sources
Those sources aren't "anonymous sources," they're more accurately called confidential sources.
You may see an story backed by no public sources. You then have to make a decision about whether you trust the publisher to have adequately checked the story using private sources.
If the newspaper gets information from a truly anonymous source (say a classified military memo), they need to verify that it's authentic before they publish. They may do that by checking as much of the memo's content as they can and calling up people in the Pentagon and asking if they've seen that particular memo. Those people may not be willing to confirm the memo publicly (because that may open them up to legal problems), but if if their identity is kept private it's less risk to them so they may be willing to confirm it.