How to send us confidential news tips

Confidential news tips open the door for investigative reports, provide important information for the public and enable Cascadia Daily News Journalists to convey the powerful accountability for their actions.

However, there may be risks to share confidential information with journalists. Our CDN team recognizes this and we take additional steps to protect sources.

Submit a confidential tip

With growing awareness of information security, we have set various options to achieve our reporters.

For text messages, voice calls and video calls, we recommend contacting reporters via the free app signal. This is an open, encrypted service with servers that do not save your data and never have access to it. This means that outside the people cannot see what they have registered. A useful function that it offers is missing news that, according to time reports specified in terms of time, for both the sender and for the recipient.

For most E -Mail correspondence, CDN reporters and editors use work -e emails. However, some reporters also have e -mail addresses via Proton -the e -mails encrypted -to use if additional security levels are required.

Note that the subject line, the sender information, the recipient information and the date on which an e -mail is sent can still be displayed without decryption. We recommend that you set up your own Proton -E -Mail account that is free and use a rather secular subject line -yes, we will check it in both directions.

In some situations, it is worth using these contact points in Internet services that are not directly connected to your home or place of work.

Reach our employees Via Signal, Proton

Isaac Stone Simonelli (Reporter for Investigative/Enterprise)
Signal: @Isaacsimonelli.04
Proton: isimonelli@proton.me

Annie Todd (dishes and crime/company)
Signal: @annietodd.73
Proton: annietodd110@proton.me

Charlotte Alden (education/company)
Signal: @Charlottalden.28

Ron Judd (Executive Editor)
Signal: @ron_judd.60

Reach our employees by phone, e -mail

To contact other CDN employees by phone or e -mail, visit Cascadiadaily.com/contact.

What makes a strong confidential tip?

These types of news tips are more than rumors, more than speculation and more than personal resentment. The information must come from first hand-and have a form of documenting the situation. The documentation includes e -mails, text messages, video segments, audio recordings and other documents in paper or digital form.

The tips should contain the following:

• A clearly articulated topic that affects the community
• An explanation of the consequences of this problem that are not addressed
• Documentation and/or other types of evidence
• A safe way for the reporter to resort to them again

Two examples of good tips:

• Share of documentation of a non -profit fraud
• Share of evidence of government officials who violate the law

We also recognize that not every confidential tip is perfect. Please be wrong with us on the side of the sharing.

With what background you have?

It is worth noting that confidential tips are not anonymous tips. The reporter with whom they work with and their editors need to know who they are. This does not mean that your name, position or identifying information will ever be published.

Participation in a story in a story is discussed before actual interviews to ensure that everyone is on the same side. Mutually agreed possibilities of how a source can participate in a story:

From the record: These are information that a reporter does not attribute to you in any way. If you have an informal conversation with a reporter, this will probably be “from the record”. However, most sources mean “deep background” when they say “from the recording”.

Deep background: These are information to which reporters react to their reporting and can be used, but cannot be assigned to a source in any way. For this reason, information that has been obtained in the deep background require additional confirmation levels before using them in a story.

Background: These are information that reporters of a source can quote and attribute, whereby a description of why the source is co -knowledge should be viewed. The source is not named.

On the recording: This is a situation in which the name of a source and other identifiable information can be included in the reporting. This is the strongest type of procurement because it offers the public the greatest transparency.

Grant anonymity: CDN prefers to source, whenever possible, to be in the recording, but if necessary, grants anonymity from case to case to protect a source from retaliation, personal damage or other reasons, especially for stories of considerable public interest that cannot be told in other options.

Remember: You don't have to share everything immediately. Our reporters often jump on a call, meet for a coffee or invite them to the office to get a “Vibe check” before taking the next steps in our reporting.

General suggestions in history

If you have feedback, general ideas for stories, parking spaces or press releases, send them to newspips@cascadiadaily.com or call/text 360-922-3092.

Isaac Stone Simonelli is CDNS Enterprise/Investigation Reporter. Reach it at Isaacsimonelli@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 Ext. 127.