Secure communications with sources and tipsters

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    • Tips and traps: Tools such as Signal app, Freedome and VPNs to keep you, your data and your sources safe. We’ll look at a few Google tools (including how to unplug from Maps tracking) as well as resources from the Digital Security section of Journalist’s Toolbox.

    We also look at data scraping: How to scrape data from web pages with Google Sheets, browser-based plug-ins and scraping .PDFs with Tabula.technology. Students should download the Tabula software at http://tabula.technology

    More training on Investigative:

    Reporters toolkit for search

    Use this tool to track and visualize search trends on Google. You can compare terms or sub-topics, and use the tool to compare keywords you can use in SEO tags and headlines. The comparison graphics, maps and list are easy to embed and share.

    Skill:

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    • News values and judgment

    We tackle the fundamentals of what makes a story newsworthy, the essential practices of journalists and the shared values that differentiate journalism from other forms of content and storytelling.

    Skill:

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    • Improving our relationship with readers

    A primer on the the audience funnel. First, we will do an audience health checkup and what we can do to help move readers through the loyalty funnel. Then we explore what a reader NEEDS from our content  – and making sure we deliver.

    Skill:

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    • Reporting with Pinpoint

    Learn how to probe through millions of documents, including audio, video, PDFs and more, to find patterns or that proverbial needle in a haystack. You’ll see case studies of how Gannett journalists have used this software to break big investigative stories.

    Skill:

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