“Everybody who talks to a newspaper has a motive,” Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee said. “That’s just a given. Good reporters always, repeat always, probe to find out what that motive is.”

Much of what the Post published on the Watergate cover-up was based on a secret source called Deep Throat. Former FBI assistant director Mark Felt later admitted – and reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein confirmed – he was Deep Throat.

Why Felt leaked to the press may have been because he had been passed over for the FBI director’s job.

When you’re taking on the President of the United States, you better be sure that what you publish is accurate and stands up in court. 

He’s got more lawyers than most of us can afford.

Often a source’s motive is simply publicity. Sometimes the motive is to embarrass enemies or rival political candidates to damage their reputations or make them look bad to voters.

You might ask, “Why are you telling me this?”

Be careful who and what you expose. Always give the accused a chance to defend themselves.

Most of the investigative stories we pursued started with a confidential tip from a whistleblower.

For years we had heard rumors about a local chemical company dumping toxic waste from their manufacturing process. I spent three hours on site with their CEO, engineers and company doctor who gave me  a snow job on how safe their procedures were.

After we published what they had told me, a whistleblower contacted us and laid out with documents the truth behind the lies they fed me. 

The whistleblower was within a month of retirement. We waited until he was out of the company to start digging around in his employer’s credibility.

We still had to be judicious in what we published so it would not finger the whistleblower. 

We did not want to set him up for a lawsuit or lose his retirement pay.

We gave the company ample opportunity to answer and rebut what he told us – and our libel lawyer gave it his blessing – before we published anything.

Months after we published the stories the owners closed the site and moved operations out of state.

In another case, two board members of a home for vulnerable adults leaked a secret state agency’s audit findings detailing abuse and neglect of residents the home was paid  to care for. 

The top administrators never found out who had tipped us. They continued to feed us information on attempts to cover up the truth and emboldened unidentified employees to feed us examples of abuse.

In all cases, the organizations conducted witch hunts but we protected the whistleblowers’ identities.. One led to three lawsuits despite the best advice of the top libel lawyer in our state. 

Our libel insurer wanted to offer them a financial settlement instead of going to trial. We said no. We believed we could win in court – and we did. 

We also won a lot of awards. Each felt good for about 15 minutes.

Exposing wrongdoing is a significant contribution to society. Just recognize the noose you are sticking your head into. And make sure you know the whistleblowers’ intentions. Tipsters may have their own personal motives and try to  use you.

Next: What crime reporting does for you

The above will appear in The Art of Compelling Writing, Volume 3, which is already in the works. Volumes 1 and 2 are available at Amazon.com. Volume 3 will appear this year. These books were published to help editors like you teach your reporters how to write well. Proceeds go to support adult literacy tutoring. You will help someone learn to read and write.  To comment or with questions, please write JerryBellune@yahoo.com