How journalists can ensure data security

Finding ways to keep journalists and their data secure must be a high priority, as information can easily fall into the wrong hands. To that end, the Freedom of the Press Foundation started a crowdfunding campaign to finance four new tools that can help keep journalists' data safe.

Many journalism investigations start with tips delivered through email, text message or other digital means. SecureDrop is a vault where sources can share information with journalists anonymously, with other words, is a submussion system where whistleblowers can submit documents and tips securely.

Four tools being developed by proven security experts make up the foundation's collection of programs for encryption:

Tails is an operating system that you can launch by plugging a USB drive, SD card or DVD into a computer.

LEAP Encryption Access Project concentrates on creating secure connections for email. Standard email clients connect to a local proxy and LEAP takes over all the encryption services, enabling the service provider to encrypt all incoming messages so only recipients can read them.

RedPhone/TextSecure are two tools created by Open WhisperSystems that create safe passage for communication via mobile phone. Red Phone automatically encrypts phone calls from Android phones, and TextSecure encrypts text messages. Both tools work behind the scenes on your phone so as not to interrupt normal workflow.

Tor Project is an organization that aims to support greater digital security for everyone through a number of projects. Journalists often use the Tor Browser Bundle, enabling them to browse the Internet without leaving a trace of web activity or revealing their location. It's free, open-source and available to Windows, Mac, Linux/Unix and Android users.

Sources: PSB MediaShift, IJNet

Lea Kaplja e  Stanislava Antova

Twitter's Erica Anderson offers tips for journalists and newsrooms

If anyone knows the power of Twitter for journalism, it's Erica Anderson, who helps journalists and public figures make the most of the platform.

Anderson is a product manager for Twitter who launched an online toolkit for journalists called Twitter for Newsrooms. She also co-produced the first online Town Hall session for Barack Obama, when he became the first U.S. President to live tweet.

"I look at Twitter as a fundamental tool to break and share news, to drive conversation around what interests you and to engage your audience", she said and here are her tips how journalists can take full advantage of this platform:

• Send in tweets via SMS -  Having your Twitter account linked to your mobile phone can be helpful when you're reporting from the field. Just text "START" or "SIGNUP" to a country-specific code and you can start texting tweets directly to your timeline.
• Nevermind the number of characters, just craft the best tweet you can.
• Build a relationship between the newsroom and what its journalists are tweeting.
• Use clients like TweetDeck to "find the signal in the noise." - TweetDeck, which Twitter bought in 2011, is a tool that lets you monitor multiple topics, searches and accounts in a streamlined way. But the real power in this tool lies in its ability to filter information by a number of factors, letting you mute the topics by word or user that are irrelevant to the conversation.
• Hashtag away. - Anderson said Twitter's research shows that hashtags help to pump up visibility. "Never have an event without hashtag," Anderson said. "It’s the most obvious place that a hashtag is really useful."
• Use Twitter for crowdsourcing campaigns. - If your newsroom wants to engage its audience in conversation about a specific issue, have the outlet's core Twitter handle join forces with individual journalists’ accounts.

Sources: IJNet/Twitter

Stanislava Antova and Lea Kaplja