WSJ launches WikiLeaks-style data-reporting tool, outflanking competitors

In the wake of their sourcing collaborations with WikiLeaks last year, the New York Times and the Guardian both have been considering options to create their own in-house submission systems permitting third parties to anonymously pass along documents and files to the papers.

Meanwhile, though, the Wall Street Journal, which declined an offer of advance access to the secret diplomatic correspondence WikiLeaks began disseminating in the fall, has beat them to it.

The Journal on Thursday unveiled SafeHouse, a standalone site for leaking tips, intel, documents or files directly to editors in the newsroom. "If a user prefers to be considered a confidential source before agreeing to provide materials to the Journal, the user can fill out a secure online form, and a Journal editor will follow up directly," according to a press release announcing the new system.

"SafeHouse will enable the collection of information and documents that could be used in the generation of trustworthy news stories," said Robert Thomson, managing editor of the Journal, in a statement.

Ashley Huston, a spokeswoman for the paper, told The Cutline that SafeHouse is the Journal's answer to the WikiLeaks-like clearinghouses that its competitors are reportedly preparing to launch. At the moment, the Journal site is operating under a 2 gigabyte limit--roughly the equivalent of three full CDs of data. The U.S. state department cables passed on to WikiLeaks were 1.6 gigabytes.

In other words, some major releases could test the site's data-storage capacity. But "we could make arrangements to receive bigger files and could potentially expand the limit if we see a need," Huston said. "And you could always upload things in multiple sessions, as well."

The Times and the Guardian are both still in development mode on their own submission systems.

"We're continuing to work on it," said Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for the Times.

"Still playing with the technology, but not close to announcing anything yet," said Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of the Guardian.

As Times executive editor Bill Keller first told The Cutline in January, the paper's "computer-assisted reporting and interactive news" unit "has been discussing options for creating a kind of EZ Pass lane for leakers."

In a March interview with The Cutline, Rusbridger said of The Guardian's similar plans: "We haven't yet definitively worked out how effectively we could build the technology. It's an ongoing dilemma that we're thinking about."