►The Society’s Code of Ethics recognizes that undercover journalism can be ethically justified when used a last resort when traditional reporting methods won’t yield information that is “vital to the public.”
The late media ethicist Louis Hodges made the case in the Journal of Media Ethics (paywall) that going undercover to pursue a story can sometimes be justified. Surreptitious methods of reporting may be appropriate when all three of these circumstances are met:
1. The information must be of vital importance to the public, and not just “interesting,” or what readers might want to know.
2. There must be no other way to acquire information as efficiently except by going undercover.
3. Innocent people are not placed at risk. (Acting as a janitor is different from posing as a doctor.)
Source: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/08900528809358320
►The Global Investigative Journalism Network published a guide to undercover reporting, including when it may be ethical and practical tips on how to do it. The Online News Association also offers the following guidelines for “Concealing your identity as a journalist,” and Poynter’s Bob Steele created a checklist for using hidden cameras and hidden microphones.
For years, New York University assembled and maintained a database of undercover reporting projects. Its archive of examples can help journalists learn what makes a successful project and which stories might merit undercover treatment. Database creator and former NYU Professor Brooke Kroeger wrote Undercover Reporting: The Truth About Deception to provide a deep dive on modern examples of undercover reporting and its ethics.
Sources:
- https://gijn.org/2022/08/01/gijns-guide-to-undercover-reporting/
- https://ethics.journalists.org/topics/concealing-your-identity-as-a-journalist/
- https://undercover.hosting.nyu.edu/files/original/cabc966a8f8f20ebce91e62c819326c58e00af1e.pdf
- https://undercover.hosting.nyu.edu/s/undercover-reporting/item-set
- https://nupress.northwestern.edu/9780810126190/undercover-reporting/
►Journalists should consider the impact that undercover reporting could have on people. Shraddha Kakade says an Indian journalist who interviewed a soldier on a hidden camera without identifying herself as a reporter could have pursued her story in a less ethically dubious manner. Indian military leaders later implicated the journalist for the soldier’s suicide.
►When undercover tactics were used to obtain a story, the audience should know why. This is related to the code’s “Be Accountable and Transparent” section, which says ethical journalists “Explain ethical choices and processes to audiences.” For more discussion of these principles, see the links from that section of the code in the online document.