Humanizing the cyber security beat

New York-based Bloomberg News reporter Dune Lawrence has been helping Bloomberg break news since 2004, when she joined the company, reporting on stocks and investors. She now covers hacking and cyber security.

Lawrence spoke with Lauren Meller of Bloomberg’s public relations staff about how she covers her beat. Here is an excerpt:

What challenges do you face when developing stories and sources?
A couple of times I’ve had whistleblowers come out of the woodwork and present me with a ton of documents, which brings its own challenges. What’s that person’s agenda? How do you make sure what’s being shown to you is authentic? How do you take the story in the direction it needs to go, while managing the expectations of the whistleblower, who might be even more invested in it than you are?

What does the future hold for this beat?
What interests me is taking a very technical subject and humanizing it. The Snowden saga was amazing in part because there’s a central figure to it, a human being. Cybersecurity, surveillance, privacy and the trade-offs between each are something that consumers, businesses and governments are all trying to negotiate, so that’s going to be a rich area for reporting for a long time.

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