New York ? Three women “whistleblowers” – an FBI agent who wrote a memo blasting intelligence failures after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and two executives who exposed corporate corruption – are Time magazine’s Persons of the Year for 2002.

In its issue reaching newsstands today, Time said Coleen Rowley, Cynthia Cooper and Sherron Watkins were selected “for believing – really believing – that the truth is one thing that must not be moved off the books, and for stepping in to make sure that it wasn’t.”

Time’s 2002 picks are unusual in that most people cited by the magazine in the past have been well-known public figures. Last year’s selection was New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, for his conduct in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

“They were people who did right just by doing their jobs rightly – which means ferociously, with eyes open and with the bravery the rest of us always hope we have and may never know if we do,” Time said of its 2002 choices.

Rowley, 48, was the FBI agent based in Minneapolis whose scathing memorandum to FBI Director Robert Mueller last May said agency headquarters ignored her pleas in the weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks to aggressively investigate Zacarias Moussaoui, now charged as an accomplice. In later Senate testimony, Rowley charged that the FBI was plagued by “careerism” and bureaucracy.

“Ordinary people do find themselves in those types of situations, and certainly government employees do,” Rowley said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” where the three honorees appeared in a group interview. “And it’s going to be beneficial to everyone to bring out the concerns earlier rather than later.”

Cooper, 38, was an internal auditor at WorldCom who alerted the telecommunications firm’s board of directors to $3.8 billion in accounting irregularities. A month later, WorldCom declared the biggest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history. Investigators have since uncovered more than $9 billion in accounting fraud at WorldCom.

Watkins, 43, was a vice president of Enron, who warned company chairman Kenneth Lay in 2001 that the firm could collapse as a result of extensive false accounting. Enron also filed for bankruptcy, and Watkins resigned last month.

“It’s an amazing recognition. … It’s still sinking in,” Watkins said Sunday. “It is mindboggling and amazing because we are just ordinary average Americans.”

Watkins and Cooper acknowledged that a great deal was at stake in making their decisions to speak out on corporate wrongdoing.

The exposure of fraud at WorldCom has been “a tragedy … very difficult at times for many employees,” and “many people have lost their entire retirement,” Cooper said in the TV interview.

However, she said, “I feel very confident that we made the right decision, and there was really only one right path.”

Watkins said it was now “up to the regulators and the court system to define exactly how this act plays out in corporate America. But I hope we’re on the road to more truth-telling for investors.”

In an earlier interview with Time editors, Rowley, Cooper and Watkins said some colleagues now hate them for exposing the mistakes of their bosses.

“There is a price to be paid. There have been times that I could not stop crying,” Cooper said.

The women symbolized a critical struggle in the country to restore trust in disgraced institutions, from business firms to the Catholic Church, Time managing editor Jim Kelly told The Associated Press.

“All three are just resolute in standing up for what is right,” Kelly told The Associated Press. “All three of them are made of very strong character.”