The Ethical Algorithm: Journalist/Whistleblower Relationships Explored Through the Lens of Social Exchange

Abstract

This study examined the ethical and professional judgments journalists consider when deciding to trust a whistleblower and determined how whistleblowers influence ethical and newsgathering processes. With a qualitative study, this research uncovered common ethical and procedural considerations journalists, who are influenced by gatekeeping forces, make when presented with information from a whistleblower, with the goal to create a conceptual model—an “ethical algorithm”—that journalists employ when deciding to publish whistleblower disclosures. In addition, the decision to build a trust relationship with a whistleblower is examined from the frameworks of ethical considerations, professional standards, and ethics codes. Finally, the journalist–whistleblower relationship is considered as a form of social exchange, a negotiated relationship in which parties determine trust as a result of an exchange of mutually beneficial acts.

Whistleblowing and the press: Complicating the standard account

“…Existing work has looked at the transformation of the journalism–whistleblowing relationship in the age of digitalization, for example through the formation of new actors such as WikiLeaks (Bosua et al, 2014; Brevini, 2017; Chadwick, 2017; Di Salvo, 2021; Porlezza and Di Salvo, 2020), global journalistic collaboration around major whistleblower disclosures such as the Panama Papers (Carson and Farhall, 2018), journalistic meta-coverage in the wake of the Snowden disclosures (Eide and Kunelius, 2018), constructions of the whistleblower in newspaper coverage (Di Salvo and Negro, 2016; Wahl-Jorgensen and Hunt, 2012), and journalists’ considerations on ethics and sources in relation to whistleblowers (Liebes and Blum-Kulka, 2004; Waters, 2020). 1 It is quite striking that with the exception of Liebes and Blum-Kulka (2004), Wahl-Jorgensen and Hunt (2012), and Waters (2020), this research is strongly focused around themes of digitalization and complexity that have acquired prominence since Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the NSA in 2013. While this emphasis is both important and warranted by recent empirical developments, we still lack a systematic conceptual and theoretical foundation from which to understand the journalism–whistleblowing relationship at a more general level.…”

“…One particularly important limitation of current research is its reliance on single-case studies such as Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, and the Panama Papers. Another is that those who do take a broader approach (most notably Liebes and Blum-Kulka, 2004, Wahl-Jorgensen and Hunt, 2012 and Waters, 2020) usually come to the discussion primarily from a journalism perspective. In this paper, I try to avoid both these shortcomings by basing my analysis on a small-N qualitative study of 14 whistleblower autobiographies and two additional cases.…”

Examining Audience Trust of Official Source and Whistleblower Information Disclosure in News Stories

“…Journalists tend to spend a significant amount of time cultivating relationships with official sources to build a steady incoming stream of newsworthy information. Whistleblowers, conversely, often initiate the relationship with a journalist with the offer of potentially newsworthy information (Waters, 2020).…”