And did it take a lot of thought before you found the right time to break the story, or did you rush in with no thought of how it may affect those around you ?
The first time I heard something deeply suspicious, as a teenager, and immediately told those around me I thought needed to know and act on it. They did.
A similar situation some years later a colleague of mine was the whistleblower, but we in the workgroup had been looking for evidence for some time. She reported and the official response was so delayed that nothing happened and the matter had to be dropped for the sake of the victims. This issue was complicated by ongoing consideration of the vulnerable people concerned.
The third time was a case of a management figure giving a job to an old drug buddy, who fiddled big cash and wrecked a fine community project. The buddy was exposed, by several of us, as events emerged. The organisation was taken over by edict and most of us lost our jobs. The management figure was able to cover his tracks and get other crony roles, which I continued to criticise along with many. We had to be cautious because of slander law, but it became common knowledge.
The fourth time I was caught in a quandary, because though I was bullied at work this was because I had been given the job over the heads of and against the better judgement of my boss and colleague. I resigned.
The fifth time I messed up.
The sixth time was a case of the local council leader doing dodgy deals with property developers. I was the first to call this out openly in a council meeting as a member of the public. The campaign I was involved in eventually got a lot of what we needed, after the leader was deposed when others came forward to challenge him politically and as a bully.