Lea esta historia en español.

El Tímpano’s newsroom has decided to heighten our security measures in 2025 to protect our sources and the communities we cover. We’ve created these comprehensive source protection guidelines:

  • Source Protection and Informed Consent
  • Limited Identification Policy
  • Enhanced In-Person Engagement

Our new policies seek to balance the dangers of publicizing the stories and experiences of immigrants with the crucial public benefit journalism provides, which includes exposing how immigration policies affect our community. Below is a description of our new guidelines and our rationale for adopting them.

We are redoubling efforts to educate our immigrant sources about what to expect when speaking to a reporter and the possible risks of participating in our journalism. Our standard interview protocol will include reviewing these risks so that when people agree to speak with us, we ensure their consent is informed (with gratitude to Define American and PublicSource.org for developing and sharing some of the resources we will use). Our protocol will also include informing sources that appear in our stories about where and how our stories appear and are promoted online.

Limited identification policy

Starting in January 2025, as a rule, El Tímpano may identify sources who are not public figures by first name and last name or initial, age, and city of residence. If other potentially identifying information is needed for the story, we will change the identifiers so we never use more than three. For example, if we report a story about fast food workers that reveals a source’s job, we would either use a pseudonym for that source or not reveal their age or city of residence (see list of potential identifiers below).

If sources request specific identity protection, such as using their initials or pseudonyms, we will honor that request as often as possible. We will respect people’s wishes if they ask us to share additional identifying information, but we will inform them first about the potential risks. We will only ask immigrant sources for last names or their citizenship status when that information is of the utmost importance to our stories. All information we collect will be guarded with robust security measures.

We recognize that this approach seems unconventional in the context of the traditional idea that journalism’s credibility is rooted in gathering and sharing as much information as possible about the life experiences of the people we feature in our story. El Tímpano’s credibility and legitimacy, however, aren’t derived from journalistic standards that are extractive and potentially harmful. Our position as an authoritative source depends on our close connection to our community, which fuels our community-powered reporting. El Tímpano’s newsroom’s top priority is to maintain our community’s trust.

El Tímpano does share disaggregated data with entities such as departments of health, researchers, legislators and others who are interested in learning more about our subscribers. The data is grouped and anonymous when it is shared. Please contact us if you would like to know more about how and when El Tímpano uses subscriber information.

Enhanced in-person engagement

We will also redouble our efforts to reach our community by increasing our in-person reporting and presence in the East Bay, accompanying our outreach team to meet people where they are: at community events and forums, food distributions and swap meets. To ensure our community members are protected from potentially harmful individuals or institutions, we won’t reveal the physical location of reporting outreach on our social media accounts or other public-facing communication platforms.

We gather information about the concerns of the people we meet and share information: printed versions of our Spanish-language stories, information sheets, and our resource guide, a comprehensive list of organizations that provide information or assistance for needs ranging from job assistance to mental health treatment.

Journalism protects vulnerable populations when it is rooted in the community and powered by communication between newsrooms and those they serve. It exposes injustice, challenges misconceptions and misinformation, and holds the powerful to account. Disenfranchisement is dependent on dehumanization. Journalism has the distinct power to counter dehumanization, reach across social divides, and remind broad audiences that undocumented people living in the United States are also entitled to respect.

Potential identifiers:

  • Full name
  • Workplace
  • City or Neighborhood
  • Age
  • Country of origin
  • Employment
  • School
  • Social media account
  • Identifying physical descriptions (e.g., short brown hair)
  • Specific details about their immigration case

Journalists should also avoid:

  • Revealing the names of family members, especially if they have different legal statuses.
  • Filming or photographing near sensitive locations that could reveal a source’s location.
  • License plate numbers that are inadvertently revealed in photos.

Credits: Written by Heather Tirado Gilligan and the El Tímpano newsroom and edited by Madeleine Bair and Jasmine Aguilera. Please see the sources we consulted here, with thanks to all of the authors.