Is it OK to LIE to uncover the truth???

DECEPTION IN JOURNALISM

Hey everyone! I need your help for a paper I’m writing for my journalism class. ANY and ALL opinions are welcome! :)

Here are some things I want you to think about.

Deception represents a collision in journalism’s values –

Is it OK to tell a lie to uncover the truth?
Is it OK for reporters to go undercover?
Is it OK to use hidden cameras?
Is it OK to pretend to be someone you are not?

Some journalists say we should NEVER use deceptive tactics because we hold public officials to high standards of conduct and should hold ourselves to those same standards. Other journalists, weighing the potential benefits of the reporting to consumers, might conclude that a small crime is acceptable if it allows you to accomplish a greater good.


So what do YOU think about all of this?

Now let me see if I can give you an example of when this was used-

Asylum exposé

Nellie Bly (May 5, 1864 – January 27, 1922) was an American journalist, author, industrialist, and charity worker. She is most famous for an undercover exposé in which she faked insanity to study a mental institution from within. She is also well-known for her record-breaking trip around the world.


Burdened again with theater and arts reporting, Bly left the Pittsburgh Dispatch in 1887 for New York City. Penniless after four months, she talked her way into the offices of Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper, the New York World, and took an undercover assignment for which she agreed to feign insanity to investigate reports of brutality and neglect at the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island.
After a night of practicing deranged expressions in front of a mirror, she checked into a working-class boardinghouse. She refused to go to bed, telling the boarders that she was afraid of them and that they looked crazy. They soon decided that she was crazy, and the next morning summoned the police. Taken to a courtroom, she pretended to have amnesia. The judge concluded she had been drugged.

She was then examined by several doctors, who all declared her to be insane. "Positively demented," said one, "I consider it a hopeless case. She needs to be put where someone will take care of her."[3] The head of the insane pavilion at Bellevue Hospital pronounced her "undoubtedly insane". The case of the "pretty crazy girl" attracted media attention: "Who Is This Insane Girl?" asked the New York Sun. The New York Times wrote of the "mysterious waif" with the "wild, hunted look in her eyes", and her desperate cry: "I can't remember, I can't remember."[4]

Committed to the asylum, Bly experienced its conditions firsthand. The food — gruel broth, spoiled beef, bread that was little more than dried dough, and dirty water that was undrinkable. The dangerous inmates were tied together with ropes. The inmates were made to sit for much of each day on hard benches with scant protection from the cold. Waste was all around the eating places. Rats crawled all around the hospital. The bathwater was frigid, and buckets of it were poured over their heads. The nurses were obnoxious and abusive, telling the patients to shut up, and beating them if they did not. Speaking with her fellow residents, Bly was convinced that some were as sane as she was. On the effect of her experiences, she wrote:

"What, excepting torture, would produce insanity quicker than this treatment? Here is a class of women sent to be cured. I would like the expert physicians who are condemning me for my action, which has proven their ability, to take a perfectly sane and healthy woman, shut her up and make her sit from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m. on straight-back benches, do not allow her to talk or move during these hours, give her no reading and let her know nothing of the world or its doings, give her bad food and harsh treatment, and see how long it will take to make her insane. Two months would make her a mental and physical wreck."[3]

After ten days, Bly was released from the asylum at The World's behest. Her report, later published in book form as Ten Days in a Mad-House, caused a sensation and brought her lasting fame. While embarrassed physicians and staff fumbled to explain how so many professionals had been fooled, a grand jury launched its own investigation into conditions at the asylum, inviting Bly to assist. The jury's report recommended the changes she had proposed, and its call for increased funds for care of the insane prompted an $850,000 increase in the budget of the Department of Public Charities and Corrections.


^^All of the information I posted on Nellie was taken from Wikipedia and more can be found here.


So in this case a journalist found herself creating a new identity (a lie) to uncover a greater truth. How do you feel about this? Do you think she could have gone a different way to uncover the same story? Why or why not? Do you think this kind of practice is ethical? Any final opinions?

Thanks for your help everyone!