About Public Insight Network

This is your backchannel to the KUOW newsroom. Share your experience, your voice and sounds, or just keep a connection with us for another day. Help us find the story. Help us understand it. Become a source here.

We at KUOW know that our journalism can only become stronger by being open to our community. We believe that anyone can make a difference. People can point us toward important stories that need to be told. They can help us tell those stories, or they can take us to the people and places who will make the story come to life.

We're in a partnership with American Public Media (APM), which created the Public Insight Network (PIN). The network is a privately–held, secure database of volunteer sources, and it mostly works with email and web forms. All the information received from sources is treated as background. Information only becomes public if the source gives permission. Usually that means they are directly involved in the coverage. Sometimes KUOW may use information a source has sent, such as a photo, a document or a portion of what was written. This only happens with the source's specific and explicit consent.

Source insights can go to other newsrooms

KUOW's PIN is now connected to dozens of similar networks across the United States. Some of the newsrooms involved are national in scope.

This means that if you become a PIN source by answering a question form or signing up, you might be contacted by a newsroom other than KUOW. All the newsrooms involved adhere to the standard of only making source information public with direct consent from the source.

Read more about how the PIN works and your privacy rights. Look for "Information provided to PIN."

Source Security

APM and KUOW take measures to protect source information on our end. However, it is up to sources to ensure that they are safe in sending information to us. That can mean not using a work computer, work email address or a work–issued mobile device in order to communicate with KUOW. Listen to a report by KUOW's Patricia Murphy on some of the legal issues involved. If you are in any doubt as to your safety in sending information to KUOW, please consult a lawyer trained in whistleblower law before you proceed.

We never use your information for anything other than journalism. We never use your information for marketing or fundraising.

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