|
Before You Promise: What journalists need to know about working with whistleblowers
By Allaa Azzam, NPCJI Press Freedom Fellow
Some of the most important information a journalist can uncover will never appear in a public record, database, or Google search. It may come instead from someone inside an institution who decides to expose potential wrongdoing: a whistleblower.
Whistleblowers can open a door to information that would otherwise remain hidden. But the act of whistleblowing can also put the person opening that door — and the journalist they’re speaking to — at considerable risk.
Knowing how to verify information, how to communicate with a whistleblower and how to protect a source as the reporting expands are all significant challenges journalists must navigate in the United States, where First Amendment protections for journalists working with confidential sources exist but are not absolute.
To help journalists navigate these challenges, the National Press Club Journalism Institute spoke with four-time Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist David Barstow, chair of the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley, and Emmy Award-winning CNN investigative reporter Pallabi Munsi. They emphasized key strategies to communicate with whistleblowers, protect sources and when a story may require legal counsel.
Start securely and build trust
“Whistleblowers are the people who get you to what’s not on the internet,” Barstow said. Getting that information starts with knowing how to safely, carefully and effectively communicate with a whistleblower.
Munsi advised journalists to move their conversation to a secure, encrypted platform, such as Signal, as early as possible. She emphasized that journalists must carefully vet their source: establishing not only who they are, but why they are coming forward and how they gained access to the information in the first place.
Barstow advised reporters to avoid treating a whistleblower simply as a source. “The most important thing that I’m trying to do initially is to simply establish a human connection,” he said. Building that trust, he said, helps journalists remember that they are protecting a person, not just information.
Barstow advised journalists to keep in mind that both sides of a relationship with a whistleblower are taking real risks: a whistleblower may risk their job, safety or freedom, while a journalist risks their credibility should they report false or misleading information.
Treat the information as a lead, not a story
Journalists should know that information provided by a whistleblower is not the whole story, but the beginning of a longer reporting process. “I believe the takeaways for anyone would be not to treat whistleblower accounts as a story, but as a lead for a story that still needs immense legwork,” Munsi said.
Munsi advised reporters to independently verify a whistleblower’s claims through other witnesses and publicly available data.
“I always start by separating out the facts from the whistleblower. What are the key threads I can independently verify? So, it’s never ‘X’ told me/showed me — it starts with public records, FOIA, open-source intelligence, social media, corporate records,” Munsi said.
Barstow advised reporters to focus on a series of questions to ask themselves after talking to a whistleblower, including:
- Was the whistleblower a firsthand witness?
- Were they a direct participant in an event?
- Do they have records they can provide?
- Can their information be independently corroborated?
- Can they point the reporter toward other ways to corroborate their information?
Know what you are promising
Journalists may need additional legal and editorial support when working on a story involving a whistleblower.
Reporters do not have an absolute privilege to refuse to reveal confidential sources before a grand jury, as per the U.S. Supreme Court decision Branzburg v. Hayes — though many federal appeals courts recognize some form of qualified privilege. Whistleblower protections, meanwhile, vary depending on the person and applicable law.
For journalists, these complexities make it important to involve editors and, in sensitive cases, legal counsel before making commitments to a source, Munsi said.
Before promising confidentiality, Barstow advised reporters to decide how far they are personally prepared to go to protect a source, and make sure their editors and reporting partners understand and share that commitment.
“I am completely comfortable with the idea of going to jail to protect my sources,” he said.
Understanding how far a journalist is willing to go to protect a source should be decided well before they begin working with a whistleblower. Do not wait until “the subpoena comes or the police arrive and the pressure gets turned up” to make that decision, Barstow said.
Protect the source from the trail you leave behind
Munsi advised journalists to consider their own security practices, not just the whistleblower’s. Precautions she recommended include:
- Meeting in locations that cannot easily be traced to either person’s normal routine.
- Using burner phones or secure, isolated digital environments when necessary.
- Strictly limiting who knows the source’s identity and communication arrangements.
“You have to start thinking like a drug dealer,” Barstow stressed. He urged reporters to watch the “electronic breadcrumbs” that can connect them to a source, including phone records, visitor logs, security cameras and toll records.
He also advised reporters to carefully consider what follow-up questions asked to other sources might inadvertently reveal about a whistleblower’s identity. Before asking follow-up questions based on a whistleblower’s information, journalists should understand who else might have had access to the same information and how many other people could plausibly know it, Barstow said.
He offered an example: if a whistleblower works in a department of 35 people, a reporter might contact all 35, widening the pool of people who could plausibly have spoken to the journalist. This has the effect of “basically creating a cloud of dust” that can help protect the identity of the whistleblower, he said.
Use documents to verify and protect
Barstow advises reporters to seek documentation that supports information provided by a whistleblower whenever possible. Documents can both corroborate a whistleblower’s account and help protect their identity.
For example, if a memo was distributed to hundreds of employees, a journalist can ask other sources questions about the information provided in the document without running the risk of revealing who provided it.
“Documents are a really effective way of not just corroborating what whistleblowers are saying, but also protecting whistleblowers,” Barstow said.
| 
