Os novos whistleblowers: mudanças no perfil e nas dinâmicas das fontes de vazamentos para a imprensa nas últimas décadas (1970 – 2020)

Abstract

A lot has changed in journalism in recent decades. This research aims to investigate the transformations that involve one of the least studied actors in journalistic practices: sources. Considering the journalistic source as an actor with new characteristics in the current media scenario helps us think about the bigger question: where is journalism going? As an object of study, we chose five major information leaks relevant to journalism and society, over a period of almost 50 years: Pentagon Papers (1971); Cablegate (2010); The Snowden Case (2013); Panama Papers (2016) and Vaza Jato (2020). The term whistleblower, used in the title, is one of the possible names to refer to sources, in cases of leaks. The hypotheses presented are two: first, that changes in the profile of sources and their dynamics with journalists are shaped mainly by new information and communication technologies. Second; that two characteristics – collaboration and protagonism – have intensified or changed significantly in the relationship between sources and the press, to the point of justifying a new categorization in the taxonomy of sources. The research also investigates the consequences of this: how the forces represented by the new characteristics of collaboration and protagonism of sources act in the journalistic field. The corpus is made up of eight books and four interviews, written and/or given by sources and journalists, reporting the behind-the-scenes of each case (with the exception of the Panama Papers source, which remains anonymous to this day. In this case, we only have the record of the journalists). As methodological operators, five markers were created with which we could compare the narratives with the theoretical concepts used. They are: identity; approach dynamics; collaboration dynamics; alleged motivation and consequences. Throughout the investigation, empirical evidence showed how the new information and communication technologies play a fundamental role in the changes of source profiles and in determining the dynamics introduced by them. And that, despite being found in different degrees, the characteristics of collaboration and protagonism are significant enough to justify a classification in the taxonomy of sources. The research also concluded that, if collaborative or protagonist sources can go beyond what were previously the actions of sources, they do not seem to go beyond the role of sources. In this way, despite contributing to a more fluid scenario in the journalistic field, collaborative and protagonist sources do not threaten the contours of the field, still defined by the concept of journalistic authority.