Yes, but in this case, they’re trying not to reveal anything at all about the whistleblower’s identity.Makes sense but I doubt that was the motive. Actually, "himself or herself" would be directly ambiguous and thereby more clearly hide the gender of the whistleblower -- and without destroying the specificity of grammatical convention.
“Makes sense but I doubt that was the motive.”
Yes, I have to agree with you. Modern, hip “journalists” reflexively use the utterly ridiculous and highly offensive wokester grammar.
“Himself or herself”, “him or her”, “he or she” has become less common in usage, after a surge in the seventies. (Interesting discussion on pronouns here, https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/30455/is-using-he-for-a-gender-neutral-third-person-correct ).
Many people use “they”, “them”, or “their” for a pronoun when the sex of the person is unknown or indefinite. It is ugly. It breaks grammatical conventions. PC bullies try to force writers to adopt the same style, describing the convention of using the singular masculine pronoun as archaic and patriarchal.
These same people normally describe themselves as believing grammar rules to be “descriptive” rather than “prescriptive”. At one point, their style was used by a tiny minority, yet they used it. If they believe that grammar usage is “descriptive”, nothing stops people like us from using another form, including the masculine singular. I am not a Hegelian, and don’t believe that social movements can only go in one direction. I will continue to use the standard English forms, and accept whatever opprobrium accompanies it.