Aside from power dynamics, one of the challenges with being a whistleblower is that you are making a moral transgression with respect to your organization. One of the commonly accepted foundations of most peoples’ morality is loyalty [1]. So you are not only exposing people to legal risk and to risk of losing power and/or standing, but you are quite literally a traitor from the point of view of the organization you blew the whistle in.
Like much of the rest of the culture war US people find ourselves in, I am fearful of the disparate treatment given whistleblowers nowadays. The whistleblower divulging Trump’s call with Zelenskyy was protected by the media so much that media organizations and social media wouldn’t even allow disclosure of the name of the whistleblower (which is odd because the act itself is about transparency). The media has been in favor of leaks forever because it allows holding the powerful accountable. But the leaks by the young man on Discord are not even being examined for content (such as the revelation that US troops are on the ground in Ukraine); the US press is decrying the leaker and demanding harsh punishment for revealing secrets. I literally have never seen the media act like that before in my life.
Like much of the rest of the culture war US people find ourselves in, I am fearful of the disparate treatment given whistleblowers nowadays. The whistleblower divulging Trump’s call with Zelenskyy was protected by the media so much that media organizations and social media wouldn’t even allow disclosure of the name of the whistleblower (which is odd because the act itself is about transparency). The media has been in favor of leaks forever because it allows holding the powerful accountable. But the leaks by the young man on Discord are not even being examined for content (such as the revelation that US troops are on the ground in Ukraine); the US press is decrying the leaker and demanding harsh punishment for revealing secrets. I literally have never seen the media act like that before in my life.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_foundations_theory