On the other hand, there are people that look at whistleblowing as a way to propel into fame. They call themselves and whistleblowers when in reality they are just publicly critiquing their company over known facts. They give whistleblowing a bad reputation.
I know a lot of people who take a seriously negative view against whistleblowers, which I find very strange. Do you not want to know the messed up shit that the companies and government are doing? I think people just see it as being a traitor.
The problem is that society doesn’t really stand behind whistleblowers.
We claim to, but at the end of the day want someone else to do the standing behind them while we go back to our lives. And we don’t want whistleblowers around as we fear that we will be their next target. Whistleblowers, in their effort to restore trust, become automatically untrusted by large swaths of society.
Naming makes you persona non grata to a lot of people.
I think many very pertinent stories and points of view never surface because of the very real threat of retaliation or ostracism - burning bridges, as you say.
I think that people who expose the mistakes, weaknesses, and perhaps even evildoing associated with people and companies are seen in the collective mind as whistleblowers, who appear usually to be regarded - and treated - badly. This is a sad but real tendency of human nature.
The irony is that many whistleblowers do a great public service, and at the very least keep entities honest by exposing their wrongs. If everyone turned aside and pretended not to notice that the emperor had no clothes, we would be in a dark place indeed.
This isn't a criticism, by the way: I suffer from the same misgivings, which war against my instinct and desire to tell the stories of the injustices I've seen firsthand.
I often wonder if such people are being encourage by those who seek to undermine the concept of whistleblowing as a whole. Like encouraging the appending of 'gate' to every scandal name, even trivial ones, to minimize the seriousness of Watergate.
EDIT: I should point out that an effective strategy to undermine opposition is to encourage the worst in them by secretly supporting those who embody the worst. When doing this it helps to have contacts in the media on your payroll.
I don't think it's really about being noble. When money is involved you don't know who is going to take offense with what you say. People with money or opportunity may not like the concept of you airing their or other people's "dirty laundry". It's also hard to verify information & a whistleblower can just as easily be painted as a hater/whiner or someone who has ulterior motives.
So shady people or companies continue to be shady because people don't want to risk loss of potential income or reputation.
A real whistleblower will draw the wrath of the people they expose. That doesn’t always take the form of being imprisoned and hinted. Sometimes the stakes are much lower.
I could tell a few stories about what happens when you engage in whistleblowing. Ex-managers try to fuck up future jobs, for one.
Whistleblowers are great for society, but I wouldn't advise it as a career move. Not unless you have your career set up (book deals, influential friends) already.
That's true. Several people will probably lose their jobs.
But that is the kind of thinking that condemns whistleblowing for the wrong reasons. To put it differently, people rather prefer to keep on pretending if that keeps their jobs than to do the right thing. And that makes everyone a fraudster.
The incentive is clear. Whistleblow and you get a reward.
The whistleblowers are humans who can't really wait until later and later. It risks being found out or losing the window of whistleblowing. Also, most people are not this analytical. If they have the balls to whistleblow, they will, usually right away (after some due diligence)
exactly what I was thinking. Why would these whistleblowers lie? Their lives are not just figuratively on the line through things like being burned by a fairly niche, even if lucrative, industry. More importantly, with the level of money involved and the general unhinged state a lot of executives embody, the fact a previous whistle-blower 'killed themselves' the risk of coming forward is astronomical.
Ultimately, who am I going to trust? someone who does their job for the fact they really love what they do and possess at least a handful of positive human qualities like passion, thirst for knowledge and a desire to improve the world - OR - do I trust some coke fueled over-paid nepobaby?
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