Usually it’s because people are afraid of exposing someone who is perceived to be powerful and important until someone else goes first. Look at Theranos, look at the #MeToo movement, look at Enron or Madoff.

Carlos Watson set himself out as a very powerful person who interviewed lots of famous and powerful people, had powerful investors, and had hoodwinked a lot of credible institutions (he was supposed to host the News & Documentary Emmys THIS week), it’s completely reasonable for people who work at a place like this to fear reprisal in finding other jobs, and thus choose to stay silent. In fact, staying quiet in a lot of these cases is the most rational choice. The people at Goldman Sachs and the VCs had little reason to speak out, easier to just quietly cut ties rather than face questions about why you backed a scammer to begin with.

It often takes someone who can’t be hurt by the person in power (or can’t be hurt as much), usually backed by an institution that is more/equally powerful as the subject, to break the proverbial dam. In this case, it was Ben Smith and The New York Times. Whatever anyone thinks of The Times, its reputation and stature as an institution is nearly unmatched (The New Yorker and The Wall Street Journal have similar reputations), it employs rigorous fact checkers for this kind of story, and the columnist in this story, has an excellent reputation and his own Rolodex of powerful sources and allies. As soon as he tore the lid off, it was safe for others to come forward.

One former employee went from an anonymous source to Fortune to on-the-record with CNN in less than 24 hours. My own experience tells me that the source was willing to go on the record with CNN after it became clear that Ozy/Watson/Rao was no longer in a position to harm her.

Look at Theranos. The Wall Street Journal was one of the only institutions in the world that could break that story. John Carreyrou had the backing of his editors, but Theranos tried to stop publication, first through thinly veiled threats by their legal counsel (led by the incredibly powerful David Boies) and going as far for Elizabeth Holmes to try to intervene with the owner of Journal (and Theranos investor) Rupert Murdoch. No smaller outlet or whistleblower could have done if. In fact, one of Carreyrou's sources, Tyler Schulz, was threatened by lawyers, his parents nearly bankrupt in legal bills, and cast-out by his grandfather (Theranos board member George Schulz). Imagine if Tyler's parents hadn’t had $500,000 to spend on legal bills or if he hadn’t talked to someone at The Wall Street Journal, does anyone think that story would have come out?

NBC News rejected Ronan Farrow's reporting on Harvey Weinstein, even though Farrow is famous and well-connected, leading him to take his reporting to The New Yorker. The Times was independently pursuing the story too, and the two outlets shared the Pulitzer, but the fact that NBC News turned down a story from a reporter they paid lots of money (and who at one time had a show on one of their networks), shows just how difficult it is to sometimes speak truth to power.

> It's an important question; the phenomenon, IME, has nothing to do with the validity of the target; it happens to good people too.

This can be true, but I think it is less true than you imply. Yes, everyone can enjoy a good pile-on, for good people or bad. But typically when these sort of under-the-radar stories break through, the reason all the stories come out at once is that people were afraid of being unhireable by speaking out against someone in power.