Basic Safe Communications With Journalists

These are things that I didn't think of but that it struck me may matter at some future time. This felt like it mattered because I read the following Twitter reply thread:

Kelsey Piper @KelseyTuoc

Replying to @Laneless_

With that said:

Write down, for your own benefit in your own notes, things that you might want to communicate; even if you're not ready to communicate them now, your contemporary notes will be extremely useful to your future self if you later decide to communicate anything.

Sep 29, 2026

I archived this as well.

Anyway, here they are mirrored:

1. The journalist should have Signal
2. Their Signal account should have its own passcode on it, i.e. not auto-unlocked with the phone
3. Explicitly have the journalist state that something is off the record; your own statement that it is gets you nothing
4. The people a journalist writes about should generally feel accurately represented
5. The journalist should be able to change their mind given new information