Tag Archives: how-to

Some resources for getting a grip on how the shutdown affects your beat


By SB Anderson

We’ve put together a few documents from key national security focused agencies with their plans for the government shutdown that began today (see bottom), and a few links to various sites with other information. The Washington Post is doing a particularly solid job in assessing and communicating the impact.

Below is an example of the agency information in the Posts’s handy “Impacts of a government shutdown” interactive list.

Washington Post Interactive Guide

Helpful links:

Learn how to be secure as a journalist in a hostile environment


By SB Anderson

About 1,000 journalists around the world have been killed in the line of duty in the past two decades; the pie chart above shows a breakdown of the situations in which they perished, according to data from the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Journalists need to take responsibility for their own security. The changing economy of the news business makes it increasingly harder for journalists to rely on security advisors.

Instead, both international and local journalists need to assess their own risks and needs in advance of embarking on a dangerous story.

In our latest “NSZ 101” how-to guide for reporters, security expert Frank Smyth offers a comprehensive look at how to prepare to visit a hostile situation and how to go about your business while there, and deal with the stress of what you’ve been through once you’re home. → Read the full guide.

Digital security guide and tips for journalists


By SB Anderson

Digital Security for JournalistsJournalists everywhere need digital security skills more than ever; we will need them even more in the years to come. In our latest “NSZ 101” how-to guide over at Medill National Security Zone, Frank Smyth, the executive director of consulting and training group Global Journalist Security, provides a basic primer on how to protect yourself in a world of phishing attacks, intercepted emails, digital surveillance, denial of service attacks and other security threats. Read the story.

Reporting tips from a military insider


By SB Anderson

Nolan Peterson

Over at Medill National Security Zone, we’ve launched our latest how-to guide for national security reporters, this one from on a military-insider-turned journalist.

“The military trains for interacting with the press the same way it trains for interrogation and torture as a prisoner of war. And as unfair as it may be, that is the stigma that you as a journalist have to overcome when you approach a member of the military. I shared this skepticism and distrust of the press during my career as an Air Force special operations pilot,” Nolan Peterson writes in his main story.

As he sees it, your challenge as a journalist is to:

  • Overcome the stigma
  • Build rapport
  • Ask intelligent and sophisticated questions
  • Balance producing objective and accurate journalism with the military’s job to protect the American people.

Peterson ia former special operations pilot and a combat veteran with multiple degrees in political science, French and journalism. As a freelance writer, he has covered international affairs and national security and have been published by several national publications. Read his how-to tips.

Avoiding visual scams during disaster coverage


By SB Anderson

Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy brought out the Photoshop cockroaches and social media streams were rife with phony images of the storm. (The Atlantic has a good collection as well. Ditto on IsTwitterWrong).

Some were pretty obvious, such as the one of awesome circular storm clouds brewing over the Statue of Liberty with  cascade of rain mid-town for effect  (although the foreground showed calm waters and a small sun-lit pleasure boat that most certainly would not have been out in that weather). 

Obviously, the first line of defense is your own internal BS detector — if it looks too good to be true, it probably isn’t real (SOURCE: National Directory of Cliches That Count). 

But there are other steps you can take if your BS detector’s needle isn’t landing in the red zone on either size of the true/false meter.

Google Reverse Image Search. Upload an image or paste in a URL and Google will try to match similar looking images. Here’s what it found for that phony Statue of Liberty pic:

Another tool with a similar approach is TinEye. Uploads and links both work, just like Google. Here are the results for the same test. 

            

Another service with a different approach is Foto Forensics, which uses “Error Level Analysis” to show you patterns in a photo that might suggest a section was pasted in. Here is its take on the statue image, suggesting the light area might not be part of the original: 

       

(Be sure to read the comments this this post for at least one shot of skepticism about the ELE route).

And the fakery wasn’t just about images. At least one notorious tweet about the New York Stock Exchange being flooded caused quite a stir — and red faces — as well.  The source has finally fessed up and apologized. (At least we’re pretty sure that’s a legitimate Twitter account….)

“Staunching the tide of information becomes almost as important as opening its floodgates, and separating fact from fiction becomes the ultimate curation,” David Holmes notes on Pando

SOURCES AND RESOURES

Preparing to photograph in danger zones


By SB Anderson

Our latest how-to guide just added to the Medill National Security Zone vault: how to prep for photographing in danger zones.

Peter Andrew Bosch, a veteran Miami Herald photographer who has covered conflicts on several continents, offers advice on what to pack, training you might consider and  tips on operating and getting the best images — and staying safe — once you’re there.

His guiding principle: “the 5 ‘Ps’:” Proper preparation helps prevent a poor performance.

→ See the complete guide.

Here’s some help in unearthing Pentagon data


By SB Anderson

 Our newest Medill National Security Zone how-to guide: Veteran investigative reporter Chris Adams of McClatchy gives advice and insights on how to tap into the vast data horde a the Pentagon, complete with a great list of resources you can start tapping immediately. He also offers some all-important advice on succeeding with your FOIA request, including at one VA agency that “at times had a dysfunctional, secretive FOIA office resistant to releasing information.” → Full story.

Take the quiz and see how much you know about mining for Pentagon data.