{"id":3905,"date":"2017-09-04T15:39:01","date_gmt":"2017-09-04T14:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amdf-centre.org\/?p=3905"},"modified":"2026-07-05T20:09:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T19:09:38","slug":"former-cnn-producers-digital-startup-covers-national-security-outside-the-cable-news-mold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amdf-centre.org\/2017\/09\/04\/former-cnn-producers-digital-startup-covers-national-security-outside-the-cable-news-mold\/","title":{"rendered":"Former CNN producer’s digital startup covers national security outside the cable news mold"},"content":{"rendered":"
Laura Hazard Owen, Nieman Lab |<\/div>\n
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In the nine years she spent working for CNN \u2014 first as an executive producer and then as a national security and intelligence correspondent \u2014\u00a0Suzanne Kelly<\/a>\u00a0began thinking that there was a gap in the market for credible information about national security issues. TV news allotted just 30 to 45 seconds to cover most stories, and the people brought in to comment as \u201cexperts\u201d might have little relevant or current experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe quality of people you\u2019re listening to on any given subject varies widely,\u201d said Kelly, who is also the author of a 2009 book on Blackwater,\u00a0Master of War<\/a>. \u201cSay you\u2019re watching a Navy SEAL commenting on a mission that\u2019s been leaked out. That person may have only served a year on a SEAL team and not really been an integral part of the community for years. Or a \u2018former CIA officer\u2019 who hasn\u2019t worked for the agency for 10 years but is commenting as if they\u2019re still being read in. It\u2019s nearly impossible to know what you can believe and what you can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so Kelly went out and started raising money to build a new kind of national security site that would include takes from actual experts, not talking heads.\u00a0The Cipher Brief<\/a>, which launched two years ago this August, covers national security issues in a number of formats \u2014 articles,\u00a0podcasts<\/a>, a\u00a0weekday newsletter<\/a>\u00a0(modeled after the daily briefing the president receive, it prioritizes threats),\u00a0conferences<\/a>, even\u00a0a weekly gossip column<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 and boasts\u00a0a stable of experts<\/a>\u00a0who weigh in on big stories.<\/p>\n

During the terrorist attacks in Barcelona earlier this month, for instance, The Cipher Brief\u00a0tapped<\/a>\u00a0James Clapper, former director of national intelligence, and John McLaughlin, former acting director of the CIA, to talk about the situation in Spain and how European intelligence agencies might be able to work with each other in the aftermath. (A few other names you might recognize in its\u00a0network<\/a>: Michael Hayden, Stanley McChrystal, Michael Chertoff\u00a0and Saxby Chambliss. The Cipher Brief is also home to legendary national security reporter\u00a0Walter Pincus<\/a>, who writes a\u00a0regular column<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine a newsroom where half of the room is analysts and half is reporters. You combine what each of them is so good at doing and deliver that every day to the reader. That\u2019s what The Cipher Brief is,\u201d Kelly said. The D.C.-based site has 20 full-time employees, 75 experts and growing, and hundreds of global contributors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen journalism models in the past where, if you tell people what they want to hear, the cash rolls in,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cThat\u2019s definitely not where we\u2019re coming from.\u201d The site strives to strip politics out of the conversation. \u201cWe\u2019re really targeting our product toward a readership that wants to know what they need to know when it comes to keeping their company safe in cyber, or what they need to do to keep their family safe from terrorism when they\u2019re traveling overseas.\u201d (In that way, the site is different from War on the Rocks, which is more\u00a0aimed at a military audience<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say that recent political events haven\u2019t made The Cipher Brief\u2019s mission feel a little more urgent. \u201cThe election of Donald Trump put everything on steroids a little bit,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cThe rest of the world is desperately seeking information on what the tweets mean, what the statements mean, what the policy initiatives mean.\u201d The Cipher Brief\u2019s main audiences include people who work in government \u2014 the White House, FBI, Pentagon\u00a0and intelligence community \u2014 and, increasingly, people who work in the private sector. About a quarter of the visitors to the website each month are international.<\/p>\n

The Cipher Brief raised a couple million dollars of VC money to launch, but two years in, it\u2019s diversifying its business model. Currently, the site is entirely free to read and advertising-supported. This fall, The Cipher Brief will launch a subscription model, giving readers a certain number of articles to read for free before they\u2019re asked to pay. The company is also planning a premium product \u2014\u00a0think Politico Pro \u2014 that will offer a higher-level daily brief and could cost a few thousand dollars a year. The Cipher Brief will partner with tech companies on that product, pulling in data from social media and the dark web to provide a fuller and more detailed matrix of the day\u2019s national security threats.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we have a direct competitor today,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cI hope we do in the future \u2014 it keeps the market healthy. But I wouldn\u2019t point to any company today that wouldn\u2019t have some advantage in collaborating with The Cipher Brief. That\u2019s a cool position to be in.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article<\/a> first appeared on Nieman Lab<\/a> and is republished on IJNet with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n

Main image CC-licensed by Flickr via\u00a0DVIDSHUB<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n