Military.com is the top source for news and benefits information for U.S. service members, veterans and their families. Our aggressive accountability reporting has had a direct impact on the community, whether it’s investigating the conduct of senior leadership leading to suspensions and Inspector General investigations, revealing how service members suffer through poor or dangerous living conditions, or revealing how missileer work can lead to cancer.
Many of our most important stories come from news tips from readers, tips that lead to significant attention from senior leadership at the Pentagon and from lawmakers on Capitol Hill. We actively take steps to protect our sources and ensure that their stories are told without fear of retaliation.
For readers interested in submitting tips to our newsroom, here’s a guide on how to do so as safely and securely as possible.
Do You Have a News Tip on an Issue We Should Be Looking Into?
News tips should be clear and concise. Documentation such as memos and emails make a big difference in making sure we can undertake an investigation. We do not report on speculation. Your favorite anonymous Instagram account may have some decent gossip, but that’s not necessarily enough to warrant significant reporting.
We believe you if you tell us your commander is mean, but we're not necessarily going to write about it. But if there are indications of abuse, tell us about the specifics. Is there a paper trail? What is the scope of the abuse?
Here are some criteria we use to assess the merit of a potential investigation:
- Were policies or laws broken?
- Was power abused?
- Were norms violated?
- Were troops or veterans forced to suffer harm for no good reason?
- Can any of the above four be proven?
- If you don’t have documentation, or first-hand knowledge, can you point us in the right direction of other potential sources or give us an idea on what documentation to go after?
Who Do I Contact at Military.com?
Most reporters at Military.com have a specific expertise and cover a beat. If you want to follow up on a story already published, contacting that writer is the best place to start. You may ask the reporter for their phone number or Signal contact and move the conversation there.
Not sure who to contact? Anyone on this list will do, and they'll put you in contact with the right person.
Pentagon and Navy: Konstantin Toropin
konstantin.toropin@Military.com
Air Force and Space Force: Thomas Novelly
Marine Corps: Drew F. Lawrence
Congress: Rebecca Kheel
Veterans Issues and Health Care: Patricia Kime
Pay and Benefits: Amanda Miller
Is My Identity Protected?
The reporter and an editor will need to know who you are. However, you can remain anonymous in most cases when a story is published if you have reason to believe that you face retaliation or other consequences for speaking out. The reporter will let you know if being anonymous is ok before moving forward. There will be no surprises. In situations where anonymity can't be guaranteed, the reporter will let you know before anything is written.
Your safety is our primary concern. The story comes second.
Do not contact a reporter from your military/government email, or through any government-owned devices. The best means of contact is through your personal email address, on a device you own and on a non-government network. Bottom line: the safest way to send us materials or contact us is with your personal phone at your home.
If you send us documentation, feel free to redact sensitive information unrelated to the topic, such as Social Security numbers. Also consider how many people have access to these materials. For example, unsigned memos have fewer people handling them. Sending us the signed version is safer in most cases.
If you send us photos, we will not automatically publish them. But we might ask for your consent to share them. Do not have any personal gear in the frame of the photo, such as uniforms with your name on them. Be weary of mirrors and that you are not in the reflection. Don't worry -- we will review photos for you and make sure you're safe.
Extra Precautions
If you feel that reaching out to Military.com puts you in a very precarious situation, there are additional steps you can take to protect yourself.
We have found the easiest means of limiting your exposure is to use the free email service Protonmail. It is run using Swiss servers meaning that there are additional privacy protections for the emails and documents that are shared using this service. If you create an account, and correspond with another Protonmail account like the Military.com account mentioned below, the communications are encrypted.
If you wish to share information using this service, and want to take additional precautions, you should:
- Use a publicly available computer not associated with the military, like one at a public library or the rare remaining internet cafe.
- Go to Protonmail.com to set up an account.
- Do not use a password or username that you typically use for your other accounts.
- Send your message to ShareMilitaryTips@pm.me. This account is monitored by the Military.com newsroom.
- If a public computer isn’t available and you have to use your personal device, consider using the Tor Browser to better mask your traffic while navigating to Protonmail. If that is also not an option, you can use a personal computer on a personal internet connection to reach Protonmail, it just reduces the relative privacy.
This approach helps protect your communications, but the reporter you will be corresponding with will still need to know who you are before the newsroom would undertake an investigation. It also is more complicated and rarely necessary to go through the above steps, but there are instances where such precautions might be essential, though no method including the above provides perfect privacy.