Independent New Hampshire Journalism · Northfield, NHInside the Building
For the people who work in New Hampshire government and have seen something the public should know.
The people who know where the problem is usually work there. The clerk who processes the denials. The officer who saw the report get rewritten. The analyst whose numbers never made it into the presentation. If you work for a town, a county, a school district, a court, or a state agency in New Hampshire, and you have seen waste, misconduct, a broken law, or a decision the public was never told about, this page is for you. Read all of it before you send anything.
Protect yourself first
The biggest risk to a source is the trail they leave before the reporter ever sees anything. Most people who are identified are identified by their own employer’s systems.
- Never use anything your employer owns or runs. No work computer, work phone, work email, work Wi-Fi, or VPN. Your employer can log what crosses them, and work email can itself be a public record.
- Do not print, scan, or download at work if you can avoid it. Printers, copiers, and document systems keep logs of who did what and when.
- Think about who else saw it. If only three people had a document, sending it narrows the field to three.
- Files carry hidden data: author names, edit history, the device that made them, and in photos, often the location. Send a photo of a printout or a screenshot instead of the original file when you can.
- Do not tell coworkers. Including the ones you trust.
A story can wait. Your job and your safety come first.
What the law says about you speaking up
New Hampshire gives public employees more room to speak than many people realize, and it also sets limits. This is a summary of what the statutes say, not legal advice. If your job is on the line, talk to a lawyer before you act.
RSA 98-E, Public Employee Freedom of Expression. Anyone employed by the state or any subdivision of it, including counties, cities, towns, school districts, and school administrative units, has “a full right to publicly discuss and give opinions as an individual on all matters concerning any government entity and its policies.” The law says no person shall interfere with a public employee’s freedom of speech, full criticism, or disclosure, and it lets an employee go to court for damages and attorney’s fees if someone does.
The limit: RSA 98-E:3 says the chapter does not change any law on confidential or privileged records, and it names law-enforcement investigation records and collective bargaining proceedings. Speaking about what your agency is doing is one thing. Handing over records the law makes confidential is another.
RSA 275-E, the Whistleblowers’ Protection Act. It covers government employers. It protects an employee who, in good faith, reports what they reasonably believe is a violation of law, refuses to take part in what they believe is illegal, or takes part in a government investigation or hearing. It does not mention reporters. Before a hearing with the labor commissioner, RSA 275-E:4 expects the employee to have first used any grievance process at work.
Federal employees. Under 5 U.S.C. § 2302(b)(8), a federal agency cannot retaliate against an employee for disclosing what they reasonably believe shows a violation of law, gross mismanagement, gross waste, abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety, as long as the disclosure is not specifically prohibited by law and the information is not required by executive order to be kept secret for national defense or foreign affairs. Several intelligence agencies, including the FBI, CIA, and NSA, are outside that section.
Classified information has its own channels: the Office of Special Counsel, an agency Inspector General, or Congress. A newsroom is not one of them. Do not send classified material here. It will not be used.
What Granite State Report promises, and what it cannot
- Your name stays out. Granite State Report will not publish your name or anything that points to you unless you say in writing that it can.
- GSR will refuse any demand to identify you, and will fight it. The New Hampshire Supreme Court recognized a reporter’s privilege to protect confidential sources in State v. Siel, 122 N.H. 254 (1982), under the state constitution and the First Amendment.
- No newsroom can promise more than the law allows. That privilege is qualified. A judge can order disclosure when the party asking meets a strict test. The best protection is information GSR never had, so share only what is needed to check the story.
- What you send is checked. Nothing is published on one person’s word. Documents are verified, and the agency is asked to respond, as the Code of Ethics requires.
- Want terms before you send anything? Call or write first and ask. A promise made to a source is kept.
Ways to reach the editor
Signal is the best mix of safe and easy. Mail leaves the least digital trail. The form and email are fine for anything you would not mind your employer seeing.
- Signal, username GraniteStateReport.09. Messages are encrypted end to end, so nobody between you and the editor can read them, and you can set them to disappear. A username lets you reach the editor without handing over your phone number. Use a personal phone, never a work one. Free at signal.org.
- By mail, with no return address. Send copies, never the only original, from a mailbox away from your home and your workplace.
Granite State Report · 43 Sargent Street · Northfield, NH 03276 - By phone, from your personal phone, to (603) 931-9264. Say as little as you like on the first call.
- The form below, from a device and network that are yours. Tor Browser hides your IP address from this site. The form is not anonymous: what you send is stored in the site’s form records with the host, WordPress.com, and a copy goes to the newsroom’s Gmail account.
- Email, to granitestatereport@gmail.com, from a personal account. Google keeps a copy, and your address is attached.
What you are agreeing to
By sending anything through this page, you confirm and accept the following.
- You are sending information you lawfully have. You did not break into a system, take files you were never given access to, or go somewhere you were not allowed to be.
- You are not sending classified national-security information, another person’s medical records, or anything involving a child.
- Granite State Report may use what you send for reporting, will try to verify it, and decides on its own whether and how to publish. Sending something does not guarantee a story.
- Granite State Report does not pay for information and does not act as your lawyer or advocate. Nothing on this page is legal advice.
- Granite State Report will protect your identity as described above. You may ask at any time how your information is being handled.
Send it
Only the boxes marked required, and the checkbox, must be filled in. Leave the contact box blank to stay unnamed; without it, there is no way to write back.
What happens next
- The editor reads it. Granite State Report is one reporter in Northfield. Nobody else opens these submissions.
- If you left a way to reach you, the editor will use only that, and only to ask about what you sent.
- Before anything is published, documents are redacted so nothing points back to you.
- If you would rather file a records request yourself, the 91-A Request Builder writes one for you. Every person in New Hampshire has the same right to ask.
Not a public employee? Start at Send a Tip, or use Nothing to See Here for documents and Tell Us Your Story for your own experience.
