The Ethics of Lying

     In the late 1970's the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper purchased and operated a seedy bar near the paper’s building. This was not, as one might assume, a concession to a Writer’s Guild demand that journalists be provided with a convenient place to drink their lunch. It was actually a prop in a sting operation to expose corruption among city licensing inspectors.

     The reporters rigged the dilapidated tavern with hidden cameras and then staged as many code violations as they could dream up. They brought filth and maggots into the kitchen. They blocked fire exits. They draped bare electrical wire over exposed wooden beams. They sabotaged the plumbing so that all the drains emptied onto the basement floor. In short, they made sure that every code enforcement department would have something to cite them for.

     As you might guess from the dateline of this story, the reporters found corrupt permit inspectors. Every single inspector in fact. The focus of the story became not that there was corruption, but how casual and routine the bribery was.

     The expose’, which played out in a 25 part series, was brilliant journalism. Unfortunately, the story turned out to be as controversial as it was compelling. Many professional journalists felt that it was unethical for the reporters to misrepresent themselves. The story was eventually denied a Pulitzer Prize due to a campaign led by Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee that condemned the Sun-Times’ methods.

     Is it acceptable for a reporter to misrepresent himself? Does Ben Bradlee condemn Upton Sinclair for accepting a job in a meat packing plant simply to research the conditions? Is it worth lying to catch liars? Is there an ethical way to expose unethical people?

     I think the benefits of this kind of sting far outweigh the murky ethics. History has shown how effective undercover reporters can be. Sinclair’s The Jungle changed the sanitation and workplace practices of the entire meat-packing industry. Reporters aren’t supposed to sit at their desks waiting for a whistle-blower to call in; they’re supposed to chase stories and wrest the truth from the liars.

     Today, television news magazines routinely employ hidden cameras and deceptive ruses to get stories. Unfortunately they seem to be influenced more by Allen Funt’s Candid Camera than Upton Sinclair.

     NBC recently ran a hidden camera expose of HVAC repairmen. They rented a house with a working air conditioner and called technicians out to see if any would recommend unnecessary service or otherwise pad the bill. It’s a reasonable premise for a consumer advocacy piece, but it seemed more focused on humiliating individual technicians than investigating problems in the industry or flaws in regulating it. There was no consumer benefit other than the enjoyment of watching sleazy contractors squirm under Chris Hanson’s measured but insistent questions.

     Speaking of Chris Hanson, his "To Catch A Predator" was perhaps the most notorious hidden camera, "gotcha-style" show. While child molesters are the least sympathetic creatures on Earth, it would be hard to argue that the show was anything other than entrapment for entertainment. Not to mention the ethical quagmire created by partnering with the vigilante group that lured in the suspects in and the police departments that arrested them.

     ABC’s Primetime program runs semi-regular series titled "What Would You Do?" in which the producers use actors to stage bizarre little morality plays in public places. For example, cameras are set up to record two actresses, a woman and a young girl, pretending to be mother and daughter sitting in a café. The mother begins loudly and cruelly berating the daughter and cameras record how the other patrons react. Other scenarios have included a faked bicycle theft and an actress, made to look pregnant, getting drunk at a bar. After recording a few people’s reactions the show’s host steps out to congratulate the busy-bodies who engaged with the actors and rebuke those who minded their own business. A lesson more suited to North Korea than America in my opinion.

     Reporters should not be punished for being sneaky and deceptive when the public good is at stake. The news media should respect the implications of this however and not use deception and hidden cameras simply to allow the audience to indulge in cheap schadenfreude.