Do you have a tip for Planet Princeton? Here’s how to contact us securely.

Part of our job as a local news organization is to hold people and institutions accountable. Have you seen something that troubles you or that you think should be a story? Do you have a tip we should be investigating? Do you have documents or other materials and evidence we should see such as emails, letters, digital files, or reports?

We read every tip you send. We try to follow up where we can. To help us understand why your tip could be a story:

• Tell us why your story is a local accountability story related to the Princeton region. Who is being harmed? What exactly is happening? How could we follow up?
• If you think your story is part of a pattern, help us understand the larger context.
• Include any evidence you have. That includes text messages, emails, documents, receipts, photos, reports, and more.
• If something is time sensitive, please note that in your subject line or introductory text.
• Please be as specific as you can.

We take privacy seriously. There is no third-party tracking on this page, but please consider who else may be able to see what you’re doing on your device.

You can contact us securely via the following methods:

The Signal App

A good option for sharing information is to contact us on Signal, a secure voice and messaging app. You can download Signal for Android or iPhone.

Open the Signal app and tap the pen icon (in the top-right on an iPhone, in the bottom-right on Android) to start a new message. Type our phone number in the search box, 609-216-6627. From there, you can send us an encrypted Signal message or call us.

Follow this guide to help lock down your phone and make sure what happens in your Signal app is more private.

If you use your phone to send us a message or call us on Signal, we will learn your phone number. It is always better for our reporting process to know a source’s identity, but we can agree to keep it confidential under many circumstances.

Email

If you do not need the highest level of security, you can send us a confidential tip via email at our Proton Mail account. Email planetprinceton AT protonmail.com. If you want more security, you can create a Proton Mail account for free and send an email to our address from your Proton account so it will be encrypted.

If you have an anonymous tip but are not concerned about security, please send those tips to tips AT planetprincetoncom.

U.S. Mail

If you don’t wish to engage in back-and-forth communication with us, you can choose to send us your information via postal mail. Mail documents to Planet Princeton, P.O. Box 423, Princeton, NJ 08542.

Drop your mail in a public mailbox with no return address. Do not mail us from your home, work, or a post office.

What not to do if you want to remain anonymous

Don’t contact us from work. Most corporate and government networks log traffic.

Don’t email us, call us, or contact us on social media. From the standpoint of someone investigating a leak, who you communicate with and when is all it takes to make you a prime suspect.

Consider carefully whether you should share your decision to become a journalistic source with anyone in your close circles, and specifically whether those people can be trusted to keep your information confidential. If you decide to let others know, tell them face to face.

When you access documents at work, there is a good chance that this access is logged and associated with your account. If only a small number of people have access to the document you’re accessing, maintaining your anonymity may be harder. 

Be aware of your habits. If you have had access to sensitive information that has been published, your activities on the internet could come under scrutiny, including what sites you have visited or shared on social media. Logs of your activity on internal networks at your workplace could be examined.