None of the politicians are talking about it, but threats to freedom of speech have emerged in three different guises in the first three weeks of the election campaign. First there was the assailing of…
When Gay Talese signed a confidentiality agreement with a motel-owning voyeur, he got access to the voyeur’s journals and secret viewing perch. But he also allowed the spying to continue for over a decade.
People who expose wrongdoing – whether it’s cruelty against animals or corporate misconduct – deserve better protection and even financial incentives to do the right thing, as the US has shown.
It’s likely that many people knew Volkswagen was cheating on emissions tests, including the engineers who built the ‘defeat device’. But why did no-one at the car maker blow the whistle?
A staggering 20% of senior management positions remain empty in the NHS – a figure that goes up to 37% in mental health. As demand for health and social care services go up in a context of recession and…
Despite doctors voicing fears they could be jailed for disclosing abuse of refugees, Richard Marles says whistleblower protection laws would still apply in relation to the Border Force Act. Is he right?
The Australia Border Force Act further entrenches the culture of secrecy around our asylum seeker policy at the cost of open and transparent government. That is something we should be worried about.
Four decades on, in a digital era of surveillance and data storage, Watergate remains a useful yardstick for assessing the value of source confidentiality.
A Swedish court decision means Julian Assange will remain confined to the Ecuadorean embassy in London. Like the muckrakers of old, he offends the powerful, but his journalistic cause is just.
Proposed laws requiring immediate reporting of animal cruelty sound like a good idea. But in practice they will make it harder to mount comprehensive investigations like the ABC’s greyhound expose.
Whistleblowing performs a public service that is celebrated in the media, condoned by the public, and increasingly protected by the government. So why are we so reluctant to do it? Recent research we published…
It has been said that the line between good investigative reporting and inappropriate journalistic prying is never clearly drawn. Journalists usually complain long and hard when governments intervene to…