The Christian Science Monitor’s cybersecurity vertical Passcode officially launched on Tuesday, but the small staff isn’t just getting started. Since October, Passcode, which Poynter first wrote about at the time, has covered the big and small security and privacy stories you’ve probably read about. Passcode doesn’t just want to be the place people turn to when big corporations or Hollywood gets hacked, though.
“We want to also look for the areas that are uncovered but also still very important, that both consumers and business owners and executives and the government should be concerned about,” said Mike Farrell, Passcode’s editor.
Passcode wants to help people figure out what those big stories mean to them, he said, “we also want to try to give them the tools to be safer, and if they’re worried about their privacy, to know how to guard against prying eyes all the time.”
It’s an intersection that already works for the Christian Science Monitor, said Abe McLaughlin, director of CSM’s content strategy group. The Monitor has always covered international news and nation state conflicts, he said.
“These days, nation states are fighting in cyberspace more,” he said. Those stories are global, he said, but they’re also personal.
Here are a few ways Passcode is working to reach people at those intersections:
— The voices:
Farrell is Passcode’s editor and Sara Sorcher is the deputy editor. The editorial team for Passcode includes Joe Uchill, Jaikumar Vijayan, Paul Roberts and Fruzsina Eördögh. So far, their coverage includes privacy on the web as a luxury item, Anthem’s data breach and there’s a quiz to test your hacker movie knowledge. Passcode also has a team of columnists who are experts in the field.
“It’s part of a model we’re trying to innovate here, which is you don’t have to have a huge in-house staff to do really good content,” McLaughlin said.
Those columnists, who are writing for free, give Passcode extra firepower, Farrell said, lend credibility, technical expertise and background on the field.
“I think that’s something you see more and more of in other places,” Farrell said. “People want to find an outlet for their writing. We’re providing that.”
Passcode also has a list of 70 influencers it will engage with on critical issues. The people on the list will take part in a poll every other week, according to Passcode’s introduction site, and their comments will be credited to “an influencer.”
However, Influencers will also have an option to go on-the-record and post comments by name. We believe this opt-in method will allow Influencers to vote and make comments candidly – but the option to take a stand publicly.
Passcode’s Influencers include Michael Daniel, the White House’s cybersecurity coordinator, and The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Cindy Cohn.
“I think that’s a great way of engaging with the people whose opinions are driving policy and who are leading the companies in this space and creating policy,” Farrell said.
— The newsletter:
“To some extent, your push product is your homepage,” McLaughlin said. “So in this case, our email is our homepage.”
As part of the newsletter, cyber security fellow Joe Uchill created an algorithm to track more than 100,000 social media accounts.
“The idea is to distill what’s rising to the top within this world among privacy and security professionals and journalists and give newsletter subscribers really bite-sized digital nuggets of information from those topics,” Farrell said.
The newsletter is free to subscribe to and comes out three times a week.
— The events:
“That’s really a big part of what we’re trying to do here,” Farrell said. “So not just writing stories on cyber security and privacy, but also convening people for live conversations. We really want to make a big effort to bring this conversation into real life.”
Those conversations begin Wednesday with “Breaking the Cyber Information Sharing Logjam,” a free event in Washington D.C. For now, Passcode will also have events in Boston, and the purpose, Farrell said, is to gather experts in the field with people who are concerned or interested so everyone can learn more.
— The funding:
Passcode is primarily focusing on funding from sponsors, and it currently has four.
Passcode has events, and for now, the sponsors help cover out-of-pocket costs for those events and they get 10 minutes for a TED-style talk at the events. The site also has sponsored content.
“The whole point of this is really to do great journalism and do it in an way that it can be self-sustaining,” McLaughlin said. “We feel like if we can aggregate a really great audience… then we’ll have sponsors that want to support that.”
— The future:
When Passcode’s team first started up, no one really understood how much work would go into creating a cybersecurity vertical, Farrell said.
That work includes a little marketing, event planning, coding, Web building, editing stories and working with freelancers. Farrell said his team wants Passcode to stand out in this space and building that up takes a lot of effort.
Now, after months of building, he said, “I think we have a much better idea of what it will take to make this thing succeed.”
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