Sources help media thrive — here’s how you can help
One of the questions I get asked the most about The Chronicle and journalism in general is how we find stories. There’s a simple answer. Our sources. Without knowledgeable people pointing our reporters in the right direction, we wouldn’t have begun our investigation into how vulnerable children are criminalized in foster care shelters around the state. We wouldn’t have been able to report about the sinking Millennium Tower or break the news that the private street of some very rich San Francisco residents was sold to a South Bay couple because of unpaid taxes.
BART would probably still have fake and nonfunctioning security cameras had a source not told us about them. We wouldn’t have been able to tell the world about the Trump administration’s numerous efforts to limit work visas, particularly those prized by Bay Area tech companies.
Sources are key to making sure the truth comes out of hiding. Government bureaucracies are vast places that can swallow vital information without people willing to bring it to light.
Lately, a national debate has swirled around “leakers.” Some politicians and longtime bureaucrats would have you believe these people are un-American and disloyal, even if the information they share is not classified and otherwise available to the public. Last month, the Associated Press reported that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency employees — very few of whom ever come close to classified information — were forced to undergo anti-leak training classes. How do we know that? Well, someone leaked it.
It should disturb all of us that a growing obsession with controlling the public’s access to information has extended to those who might point journalists to public, but not widely shared, documents.
So The Chronicle, like many other news outlets, has responded with more sophisticated methods of newsgathering. We need to keep these lines of communication open and also safe for potential sources who would like to share what they know about how our government is behaving.
The Chronicle is now participating in SecureDrop, an open-source whistleblower submission system managed by the Freedom of the Press Foundation. SecureDrop can be accessed only through Tor, a special Internet browser that routes traffic through various servers, making it difficult to trace a user’s activity. This isn’t for everyone, but for those sources who want to communicate with us this way, now they can. Sources can also reach The Chronicle using encrypted email or Signal, a free app that lets users send encrypted text messages and make encrypted voice calls. Postal mail is popular, too, and there are also safe ways to use that.
None of these new tools erases our journalistic duty to make sure the information we report is accurate and newsworthy. At The Chronicle, we have long experience dealing with sources — practices that have been refined over decades. Also in our favor are several laws that provide extensive protections for journalists who promise to keep the confidentiality of sources, if and when we choose to grant such anonymity.
Our journalists know how to get to the truth. But we need your help.
For more information on how to contact us, go to https://newstips. sfchronicle.com.