BylineByline Card
Mei-Ling Chen
Foreign Correspondent · East Asia
A source Googles you. They contact you in 90 seconds.
Your next source Googles you. What do they find?
Your credential,
one link.
Build your free Byline card in 4 minutes. Add your beat, clips, masthead, and encrypted contact. Share one URL that does the work of a press kit.
Free forever · No credit card
Case 01 of 03
The Problem
Mei-Ling Chen
Freelance · East Asia
A Taipei source went dark. The reason: she couldn't verify Mei-Ling was who she said she was.
Pitching across three continents meant three different email signatures, a WordPress portfolio last updated in 2021, and a LinkedIn that called her a "storyteller." A senior ministry official Googled her before agreeing to talk.
"He found a broken link and a tweet from 2019. He moved on."
The Build
Byline card assembling...
Beat
Taiwan Strait · China Policy · Security
Masthead
The Atlantic · Reuters · FRONTLINE
Clip Reel
12 verified bylines, auto-updating
Contact
Signal @meilingchen · Encrypted routing
Live Feed
Latest 3 bylines, refreshed on publish
The Result
new source contacts in 30 days
The ministry official found her Byline card. He reached out via Signal within the hour.
Three weeks after launching her card, Mei-Ling received seven inbound contact requests from verified government and civil society sources — all of whom cited finding her card via a single Google search.
of sources say a journalist's online presence affects whether they make contact
Reuters Institute · Source Trust Survey 2025
Case 02 of 03
The Problem
James Okafor
Bureau Chief · West Africa
A Pulitzer board asked for a credentials package. His team had 11 reporters. None had a standard bio.
As Lagos bureau chief for three wire services, James spent 40 hours before a fellowship deadline manually compiling credentials for his team — pulling LinkedIn profiles, PDFs, and email threads from a go-bag in three time zones.
""I was building their portfolios at 2am in a hotel lobby in Abuja.""
The Build
Byline card assembling...
Team Roster
11 reporters · Byline cards deployed in 48hrs
Bureau Identity
AP / Guardian / BBC verified masthead
Credential Dashboard
Single admin view, real-time updates
Shareable Package
One link for full team credentials
Auto-sync
Bylines publish → cards update in 60s
The Result
to credential an 11-person bureau
The fellowship accepted. The board cited "exceptional credential clarity" in the commendation.
James deployed Byline across his entire Lagos bureau in two days. The credentials package he submitted took 20 minutes to assemble — a single shared link. The fellowship committee called it the most organized application they'd reviewed that cycle.
average time to build a complete, verified Byline card
Measured across 12,000+ journalist onboardings · Byline internal data
Case 03 of 03
The Problem
Priya Nair
Managing Editor · Digital
A leaked document source asked to verify the reporter's identity before handing over the file.
Priya's investigative team at a 34-person digital outlet was covering a federal procurement story. Their source — a career civil servant — needed to trust the reporter's institutional affiliation before sharing documents. There was no standard way to prove it.
""He needed to see something official. A LinkedIn profile wasn't going to cut it.""
The Build
Byline card assembling...
Org Deployment
34 journalists · Org-verified badges
Source Trust
Cryptographic org signature on every card
Editorial Policy
Beat restrictions + editorial disclosure
SecureDrop
Integrated routing for anonymous tips
Trust Analytics
Source contact rate by reporter, by beat
The Result
increase in verified source contacts · first quarter
The source handed over the documents. The story ran. The outlet won a national press award.
After deploying Byline org-wide, Priya's team saw a 340% increase in verified inbound source contacts in the first quarter. Three investigations that year cited sources who made first contact via a Byline card. The outlet renewed at the enterprise tier within 90 days.
Equip Your
Newsroom.
When every journalist on your masthead carries a verified Byline card, your newsroom becomes a trust infrastructure — for sources, for partners, for the public record.
Verified masthead credentials
Cryptographically signed by your organization
Centralized credential management
Update team bios, beats, and affiliations in one dashboard
Source contact analytics
See which reporters are being reached — and by whom
Encrypted contact routing
Signal, ProtonMail, and SecureDrop integration
Trusted by correspondents filing from Kyiv, Nairobi, Taipei, and Washington. Newsroom deployments start at $29/journalist/year.