How to leak to a journalist
Planning to leak? Read these tips first.
There’s a lot out there to leak.
The second Trump administration, historically unfriendly to the press, has thrown Washington into chaos. Tens of thousands of federal employees have been placed on leave or fired as billionaire Elon Musk’s DOGE tries to gut the government. And taxpayer-funded data is being destroyed.
Amid the confusion, news organizations and individual journalists are changing how they try to attract would-be tipsters. Larger publishers have beefed up their “How to contact us” pages (The Guardian offers a veritable choose-your-own adventure of secure options). And increasingly, Signal, the free, open-source, encrypted messaging app, is seen as one of the best and most secure ways to share information with reporters — whether those reporters work independently, have the backing of a large publisher, or are inadvertently added to a war plans thread.
I spoke with eight journalists about how to leak in a safe, smart way. Disclaimer you probably knew was coming: No method of leaking is 100% secure, and the tips here reduce risk but cannot eliminate it completely. “I know it’s appealing to be instrumental in helping a reporter break a story, and god knows reporters love breaking stories,” says Marisa Kabas, an independent reporter and writer of The Handbasket who’s been breaking one scoop after another about DOGE and the Trump administration. “But in almost all cases, your safety and physical and mental health should come first.”
https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/04/how-to-leak-to-a-journalist/
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