Secure tips

If you know something the public has a right to know, we want to hear from you. Meridian is reader-funded and beholden to no proprietor, advertiser or party, which means we can pursue a story wherever it leads. This page explains the practical steps for getting information to us, the methods that keep your identity protected, and what turns a tip into a story we can stand behind.

You do not need to be certain, technical, or a whistleblower in any formal sense. A document, a screenshot, a contract, a pattern you have noticed at work — any of these can be a starting point. Reach out first if you are unsure; we are happy to talk through how to send something safely before you send anything at all.

How to reach us

We offer several channels so you can choose the one that fits your situation and your comfort with technology. Each protects you in a different way. If you are weighing real risk, the anonymous upload and Signal are the strongest options; ordinary email is the weakest.

You can also reach the newsroom through ordinary channels on our contact page. Plain email and web forms are convenient and fine for non-sensitive tips, but they are not anonymous: they record your address, and they can be read in transit or subpoenaed later. Match the channel to the risk you are taking.

The safest message is the one that never had to travel through a system someone else controls.Meridian security desk

What makes a useful tip

The strongest tips give us something we can verify independently. We publish a claim only when a document or a reproducible trail supports it, so the more you can point us toward evidence — rather than conclusions alone — the further a story can go. Helpful detail includes:

• What happened, who was involved, and roughly when — as specifically as you can manage.
• Documents, records, emails, contracts, photographs or data that show it, rather than describe it.
• How you came to know it, so we can judge how to corroborate it without exposing you.
• Other people or records that might confirm the account, even if you cannot reach them yourself.
• What you are worried about — legal exposure, your job, your safety — so we can plan around it.

Do not feel you must build the case for us. Partial information is welcome; assembling and checking it is our job. We will never publish your name or any identifying detail without your explicit agreement, and we will tell you honestly if we cannot protect a particular piece of information.

Protecting yourself

A few habits sharply reduce the trail you leave. None of this is alarmist — it is simply how careful sources work, and we would rather you take a quiet, deliberate first step than a hasty one.

• Use your own device and network. Avoid work laptops, work phones, work email and office Wi-Fi entirely. Personal hardware on a home or mobile connection is far harder to monitor.
• Contact us before gathering anything. Searching internal systems, printing or downloading files can itself be logged. We can advise on what is worth the risk and what is not.
• Keep records where they already are. Photographing a screen with a personal phone often leaves less of a trail than forwarding or exporting a file through work systems.
• Tell no one. The fewer people who know you have spoken to a journalist, the safer you are. Colleagues, friends and family are the most common way a source is identified.
• Mind the metadata. Photos and documents can carry hidden information about who made them and where. If that worries you, send the file and let us strip it, or ask us how.

Handling sensitive information is a responsibility we take seriously, and it is governed by our editorial standards and privacy policies. If we get something wrong, we say so in public on our corrections page. When you are ready, reach out through any of the methods above — or simply open our contact page and we will take it from there.