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I had no idea all the major news sites had an .onion Secure Drop website. I wonder how many leaked news they receive per year.

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They likely receive a lot of leaked news items a year.

However, the vast majority are either:

1. Completely fake, because someone on 4chan/Reddit/an internet forum/social media wanted to see how many journalists they could prank with false information.

2. Uninteresting or pointless to write about, since they don't describe newsworthy stories.

So the amount of actual, legitimate leaked news stories they receive a year is likely a lot less than the amount of stories they receive through these systems in total.

I'd also offer: 3. Somewhat interesting and likely legitimate, but doesn't support any narrative the editor(s) or owner(s) wish to promote.

There are media outlets all over the political space, so it's just a matter of dropping your stuff to the ones that are interested.

Yes, but since everyone is super-polarized these days and only listens to "news" outlets pushing narratives they already agree with, that means no one hears it who needs to. It's very hard to get a story to get widespread attention.

probably a lot but few are headline grabbers, afaik the biggest leak of last year was the Panama Papers and the guy didn't really use these Secure Drop links because he had like several TBs of information

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