Who Do You Think Wrote It?: Stakeholder Tensions in a Case of Anonymous Organizational Whistleblowing¹

Abstract

In September 2018, the New York Times published an anonymous editorial entitled, “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.” This study aimed to understand what tensions emerged for key stakeholders, including the whistleblower, the New York Times, President Trump, and others, as they made sense of the editorial. We found that three tensions characterized stakeholder perspectives. These tensions included a focus on message vs. a focus on whistleblower identity, credibility vs. protection, and good journalism vs. the public good. This essay concludes with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications of anonymous organizational whistleblowing and communication.

Keywords:

• Anonymity
• Resistance
• Trump Administration
• Whistleblowing

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ On October 28, 2020 Miles Taylor, a former U.S. Department of Homeland Security official, revealed himself as the author of the op-ed analyzed here. This changes neither the importance of efforts to understand anonymous whistleblowing generally nor the analysis of tensions experienced around the time of this whistleblowing incident.