Powerful semantics: why does the term "whistleblower" have such a negative connotation? Does being a team player mean ignoring any big organizational problems that may come along? - Fraud Findings

Internal Auditor, Feb, 2003 by Courthenay Thompson

OW!" EXCLAIMED SAL SPARKS. "Time magazine's Persons of the Year for 2002 are Sherron Watkins of Enron Corp., Coleen Rowley of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Cynthia Cooper of WorldCom Inc. The cover line calls them 'The Whistleblowers.'"

"Listen to this: 'Cooper discovered and subsequently informed WorldCom's board that the company had covered up $3.8 billion in losses through fraudulent accounting practices. In 2001, Watkins, an Enron vice president, warned her chairman that the company's accounting methods were improper. Rowley, an FBI staff attorney, wrote a memo to the director in May 2002 informing him that the bureau failed to investigate a terrorism suspect now indicted as a co-conspirator in the Sept. 11 attacks.'"

"I know, I know," Darryl Jones, the general auditor, replied.

"You don't seem very happy," Sal said. "I thought you would be pleased that an internal auditor would get such recognition."

"Oh, I am pleased about that," Darryl said. "I just don't like the use of the term whistleblower."

"Really?" Sal asked. "What would you call them ... informants?"

Darryl thought for a moment before replying. These are courageous individuals who put their personal well-being on the line, stating what they believed needed to be said. One -- Worldcom's Cooper -- was a vice president and internal auditor.

Darryl smiled. "I used to call them informants," he said. "To me whistleblowers were people who went outside the organization. They reported their concerns directly to law enforcement or regulators, usually after becoming frustrated and exasperated by their inability to get management to address their concerns. Then, I had a change of heart."

"What caused that?" Sal asked.

"I got into a debate with someone who wanted to use whistleblower in an article she was writing to describe anyone who bypassed an authority figure," Darryl said. "I told her that I thought whistleblower was too negative and that informant was a better term. Her response was that she thought informant was too negative."

"So, what happened?" Sal asked.

"I called in a third party," Darryl said. "A friend with a lot of experience dealing with informants. I asked him which term he used.

"He said, 'We call them concerned employees,'" Darryl continued. "That stopped me in my tacks. All the terms I had heard or used had negative connotations. Here was someone using a term that implied the person cared and was trying to do the right thing."

"That is different," Sal said.

"I remember a discussion in a fraud seminar," Darryl continued. "We listed all the terms we could think of for informants -- tattle-tale, stool pigeon, rat, snitch -- not one term was positive. Words have value. You can tell a lot about people by paying attention to the words they use.

"You know, the last fraud case I worked on was taken to law enforcement," Sal said. "The law enforcement officer referred to the person providing us information as the confidential source."

"Probably a good phrase," Darryl said. "Frankly, some of the confidential sources we have had were not exactly 'concerned employees.' They had motives that went far beyond being concerned."

"There is something else about this that bothers you, isn't there?" Sal asked.

"Yes, there is," Darryl said. "These people did what they should have done. I'm really bothered that people think it is exceptional. I would like to believe that a lot of internal auditors would have done what this one did."

"But, a lot wouldn't have," Sal said. "Don't you agree?"

"I'm afraid you're right," Darryl said. "And that may be what bothers me most. A lot of auditors -- public accountants, internal auditors, and government auditors -- seem to avoid addressing problems. If that weren't the case, no one would be surprised when someone does the right thing."

"My uncle used to be general auditor for a publicly held company," Sal said. "He told me one way he knew be was doing a good job was if every few years he told my aunt, 'Don't charge anything.' That always meant he was going to go to executive management or the audit committee with something they might not want to hear. He wasn't sure whether he would have a job when it was over."

"I can identify with that," Darryl said. "How long did your uncle last at that company?"

"He took early retirement after about 25 years," Sal said. "The company wanted him to stay on, but he said he was ready to leave. I believe he thought it was a only a matter of time before something surfaced that he couldn't turn away from, but that the company wouldn't really want handled."

Darryl and Sal were silent for a time.

Finally Darryl broke the silence. "You know, I have been in internal auditing almost 20 years. I love it: It's challenging and I learn new things every day. I enjoy the problem identification and problem solving aspects of this field, and I like the occasional fraud investigations. But, I have to agree with your uncle. It's no fun wondering if the organization will fail to support us on a critical issue and if I'll be out of a job for doing what I believe is right. That's the part I don't love."