""It was a lot easier, in some ways, for journalists back in the 80s and 90s, before all of these cloud platforms existed," said Melody Kramer, a product manager at ProPublica who works on engagement and crowdsourcing tools. "You would put things in a Microsoft Word document, share that within your [physical] newsroom, and nothing would live in a data center or different space." The most sensitive stories could be written on computers without network connections and discussed and edited only in the office."
"Many common business tools tend to be secure but not private; Google Drive, for example, is secure - Anderson says Google "has some of the best security people I can think of" - but documents in Google Drive aren't end-to-end encrypted, and Google may pass them on to authorities if it is served with a request from law enforcement."
Journalists commonly use Slack, phone, email, Zoom, messaging apps, and Google Docs for reporting and collaboration. Newsroom security involves both technical security (hackability) and privacy (service provider access to data). Many business tools offer strong security but lack end-to-end encryption, allowing companies like Google to comply with law enforcement requests and disclose documents. Before cloud platforms, sensitive reporting could be kept offline and edited physically within newsrooms, reducing exposure. Office environments still carry risks such as local-server intrusions, wireless endpoint exploits, and physical-security concerns. Increased government legal and political pressure on media raises urgency to reassess tool privacy, data access policies, and secure workflows.
Read at Nieman Lab
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