The Media

The media can be of great benefit to the whistleblower, both with respect to obtaining a proper response from government to the suspected wrongdoing disclosed, and also to protecting the whistleblower from alleged reprisals.

Exposure through the media to the public, of the situations where the suspected wrongdoing may be imposing detriment on people in the community, can gain an appropriate government response to that wrongdoing.

Exposure to the public of the career, family and life of the whistleblowers can gain concern and respect within the community for the whistleblower as a person from the community.

The media is a primary vehicle for helping the public become aware of the systemic nature of suspected wrongdoing within institutions, or of any accumulation of wrongdoing across multiple institutions.

Plainly the media plays a vital role in holding governments to account in an open democracy which values a free press.

The whistleblower, however, needs to be awake to and prepared for the disappointments and risks with any strategy or opportunity taken through the media, because its sole interest may not be in the whistleblower’s tale or welfare when ‘political fortune/misfortune‘ is involved.

Only 48% of whistleblowers surveyed by the 1992-94 research program, undertaken at the University of Queensland, reported a happy outcome from dealings with the media.

Media can also be politicised, or have a bias in their editorial policies, or be supporting a cause that the whistleblower’s disclosure undermines. Media can attack the whistleblower in these circumstances, and in other situations.

The media has done this most viciously, even to hero whistleblowers elsewhere given national acclaim. A complaint to the Press Council over misrepresentation offers little solace if successful.

Despite the movies about hero journalists, such ethical journalists do exist, and have received Awards from QWAG.

There are precedents in Queensland however where journalists have betrayed the identity of whistleblowers, included material given to them off the record, and  surrendered their notes to the Court when the Court has threatened imprisonment.