I do despair at the manner in which journalists treat whistleblowing stories. I'm not quite sure what UK journalists lack but its quite a lot in terms of research, accuracy and detail. They are also heavily influenced by senior doctors who aren't always an honest bunch. This is why it's important to check facts methodically. Here is a piece I wrote for journalists http://helpmeinvestigate.com/health/2012/02/07/guidance-for-journalists-working-with-whistleblowers/ Firstly, I would never advise junior doctors to go to the media. Having done so myself, I believe it was a wrong decision. I probably did it for all the right reasons but I never quite realised how creepy, mean and patronising journalists can be. I have only found one journalist who does his job well in the whistleblowing arena, that's Mr Tom Wells. If you can find him, he's your guy. Everyone else is flippant, arrogant and largely untrustworthy. I know that's a generalisation but I've dealt with everyone from Panorama onwards. Secondly, the great Gods at the GMC will collect any media articles and will prosecute the doctor on any misinterpretstions made by journalists. The Sunday Times is not recommended at all. With their posh upper class snobbery, they think they know it all but in reality they know very little. I spent hours with the GMC correcting misleading headlines I wasn't in control of. The Sunday Times wasn't there defending me and in the end they deleted the tale recordings they made of the interview, how convenient for them. I think it took me two years to convince the GMC that my data and what I actually said was spun by the media to sell their newspaper. I think they finally got the drift and felt a bit foolish after feverish memos had been sent everywhere on what their interpretion of "Elderly Helped to Die' was. The fact I was complaining about government underfunding costing lives escaped them all. Luckily, I kept all my letters and data to prove I was right and the media spun it for their own reasons. Some whistlebowers like the media as it gives them a sense of false purpose and importance. Most then believe they are better than the average person on the street. This Saint like image is just not right for any whistleblowing doctors emotional make up. I think well grounded doctors will never need the media as a crutch. I started to dislike the media about the time when I was invited to talk shows. After doing a show called Kikroy, I threw my mobile in the Thames and never went back to the media again. Kikroy ofcourse was snoozing up to the Department of Health executives while implying he was critical of them in public. The audience was filled with divas. I was just a jobbing doctor and really felt irritable being surrounded by people who craved the limelight. I think I was just disgusted by the double standards of the media in general. There is no loyalty to the public interest in any story. Not even when the government shortfalls are ending lives. After that day, I stopped most media appearances and ceased frivolous interviews only opting for journalists if they were intelligent enough to write considered pieces. Here is a good piece on whistleblowing I contributed to http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/nov/22/whistleblowing-autonomy-hewlett-packard I make no apologies for my rather mean review of UK journalists. It probably serves then right since they spend more time gossiping over rumours about me rather than understanding the main issues at play in whistleblowing. I suspect if they had treated me with the respect my case wins deserve then I would have been less scathing. I'm quite happy to amuse myself by watching them all get the subject of medical whistleblowing completely wrong and run around in a circle chasing their tail and not progressing further with their headlines which are now just limited to Trusts spending money on suspended whistleblower. Gosh, really. Is there nothing else about whistleblowing? While most of the tabloid media believe the false GMC rumours of my so called mental illness that was invented as a fictional tale for their convenience, it amuses me that the main media headlines are based on information from senior whistleblowers who have admitted to bring mentally ill and suffering from stress. I get the last laugh ofcourse. I hope the media representation of whistleblowers does improve with time. I think their entrenched misunderstanding of the issues at play will be hard to untangle and it will probably take years of banging headlines against a brick wall before editors finally realise they have failed the public. As I have seen, there is always a time when journalists and their loved ones fall victim to the system they are responsible for creating. It's not so easy when they are lying on a hospital bed and the system fails around them.