←All Posts Posted on August 10, 2015 By admin
Like many other professions, journalism in Australia has come under increasing pressure in recent years thanks to tighter budgets and the rise of the Internet offering easy, free access to information. Combine this with the rise of citizen journalism and a 24-hour news cycle and traditional journalism begins to look like an endangered species.
None of this means that there’s no longer a place for traditional journalism, however, particularly when it comes to the things it does best like uncovering big stories and providing the in-depth coverage that ‘instant’ media can’t.
We live in a world increasingly driven by data with more information about individuals, companies and governments available than ever before. But our increased reliance on technology also makes it easier to distort or obfuscate important details. Uncovering details buried in masses of unstructured data or accessing deleted, password-protected documents from a flash drive without compromising the original media can take resources and skills that are beyond those of the average investigative journalist.
Lack of knowledge about how digital systems and related legislation work can lead journalists into trouble. It’s necessary to tread a careful path between finding important, public interest facts and staying within the law. The law itself has sometimes struggled to stay up to date with the digital era, so it’s no surprise that journalists too have had to adapt to new ways finding and dealing with information.
Fortunately, computer forensic investigators possess these skills. These are experts in their field with the abilities to deal with a variety of different digital equipment from mobile phones and desktop PCs to corporate servers and cloud storage. The services they offer can help journalists in a number of ways, from handling data on digital media received from contacts to being able to communicate securely with confidential sources.
Of course these services are expensive at normal corporate rates and that may well put off journalists from employing them even if they’re backed by a major news organisation. It would be a shame if Australia’s long and noble history of investigative journalism were to end because of the cost of dealing with digital data.
Here at Elvidence we recognise the fact that journalists can be helped by our services.
In this spirit, we are proud to offer investigative journalists digital forensic services and consultancy on information security, privacy and confidentiality issues at discounts of up to 90 percent over its normal rates.
The amount of investigative journalism in Australia has declined since the 1980s and this move to help journalists to stay up to date with the digital age is our contribution towards ensuring it doesn’t die out completely.