Previously on OJB I posted about some ongoing research I was conducting into whether security practices in local news organisations had changed in the wake of the Snowden and RIPA (UK surveillance powers) revelations.

Now the full research paper has been published in the academic journal Digital Journalism, as part of a special edition on Journalism, Citizenship and Surveillance Society. The abstract pretty much sums it up:

“Despite reports of widespread interception of communications by the UK government, and revelations that police were using surveillance powers to access journalists’ communications data to identify sources, regional newspaper journalists show few signs of adapting source protection and information security practices to reflect new legal and technological threats, and there is widespread ignorance of what their employers are doing to protect networked systems of production. This paper argues that the “reactive” approach to source protection that seeks to build a legal defence if required, is no longer adequate in the context of workforce monitoring, and that publishers need to update their policies and practice to address ongoing change in the environment for journalists and sources.”

Other highlights of the edition include:

• Six ways that people in the Netherlands see their privacy in the wake of Snowden by Anouk Mols and Suzanne Janssen
• An analysis of news reporting of encryption by Einar Thorsen
• Courtney Johnson’s analysis of US reporting on surveillance
• Analysis of UK reporting of the Snowden revelations
• How two privacy advocacy groups are making their case (and how the media reports that) by Till Wascher