These days it is getting tougher and tougher to find people willing to speak up when they witness wrong-doing.

Plenty of people are willing to complain about corruption or injustice, if they can remain anonymous, or if the wrong-doing has already been exposed, and the threat of speaking out no longer exists.

I'm talking about true whistle blowers, who despite the risk of being retaliated against, report dishonest or unfair behavior, provide proof, then stand behind their information no matter how many people try to get them to shut up.

Last night on News 4 WOAI at 10pm, we aired my investigation into a local school district accountant who appears to have been stealing from the special education fund, which is of course, taxpayer money. 

So not only are students with special needs being denied that money which was supposed to go toward their education, hard working taxpayers who provided that money for the school district are also being taken advantage of.

Yet it might never have been uncovered, and the accountant might never have been stopped, if an eyewitness hadn't stepped forward, told us what was going on, and agreed to go on camera to explain the scheme. 

In this case, the whistle blower was a young cashier at a book store.  He had no connection to the school district, and no ax to grind against anyone who worked there.

He simply noticed that this school official had purchased about $10,000 worth of DVD's from the book store, and charged it all to the school district account.  The DVD's included R-rated movies, heavy metal rock videos and Japanese animation, some of which was not recommended for young audiences due to violent or sexual content.

The book store employee also found the school officials behavior and comments to be suspicious, so he contacted the News 4 Trouble Shooters.  

He stood nothing to gain from this, but he had witnessed something that didn't seem right and he decided to do something about it.

I can't tell you how rare and refreshing it is to have someone act like that... and it shouldn't be so unusual.

That book store employee wasn't the only one who witnessed what was going on, other workers at the store noticed as well.  They had discussed it among themselves.  But our tipster was the only one to take the initiative to stop it.

As I mentioned, I often get contacted by people who get upset one day and decide to "call the TV station" and rant about something that makes them angry.  But they won't go on the record, identify themselves, stand behind their claims, etc... 

In many cases, they stop cooperating with us once we start looking into the matter because they are afraid of what their family, co-workers, spouse, boss, doctor or school will say if they follow through.

Sometimes they decide not to go through with exposing something, because they are worried about appearing on television.

Of course, they are within their rights to change their mind, and let the matter drop.

But thank goodness there are courageous, people of integrity out there who refuse to stand by and let wrong-doing or corruption continue.  They make my job easier, of course.  But the important thing is, their efforts and strength lead to positive change.