Throughout history, whistleblowers have played an important role in bringing corruption, fraud, waste, and other improprieties to light worldwide. But journalists face serious challenges in doing this kind of reporting, especially when it involves world leaders and the federal intelligence community.
In the public imagination, reporters working with whistleblowers has traditionally meant All the President’s Men-style cloak-and-dagger stealth — meetings in shadowy underground garages, potted plants turned into signals, Hal Holbrook’s whispered exhortations to “follow the money.” But today, journalists’ interactions with whistleblowers are more likely to come in Signal chats or secure drop boxes than Washington, DC garages. And that shift has changed the terms of engagement in often confusing ways.
