12 August
2006 Digital Journalist.
By Karen Slattery
and Mark Doremus.
Sex predators….children…Internet
chat rooms…stakeouts…hidden cameras…busts. All the makings of compelling
television news stories.
The trouble is
that some TV news organizations have been orchestrating the busts and then
covering them as news.
For instance,
WTMJ
in Milwaukee, Wis., organized a sting involving Web pedophiles and reported
on its efforts during the recent May sweeps. An investigative reporter
told the audience that the station arranged for volunteers associated with
the Web site "Perverted Justice" to come to a house borrowed
by the station and pose as underage teens in online chat rooms. A "poser"
engaged in chat room conversations with adults, which in some cases turned
sexual in nature. A second volunteer then phoned the sex predator and set
up a meeting at the house, which was equipped with hidden cameras. Also
on hand when alleged pedophiles arrived were the station's news crew, and
local sheriff's deputies. The news reporter spent time on camera shaming
each alleged predator before the deputies hauled him off to jail.
WTMJ has organized,
and broadcast, on-camera pedophile stings for several years, beginning
in 2003. Similar busts have appeared on NBC's "Dateline"
and on local newscasts in a number of markets around the country.
In fact, the Perverted
Justice Internet vigilance committee has a name for this phenomenon. It's
called a "Group Media Bust," and it has a fairly standard format. Perverted
Justice volunteers go into Internet chat rooms, pose as young kids, and
arrange meetings with adults looking for sex. For their part, the participating
news organizations coordinate the house or apartment where the bust occurs
and, in a recent refinement, the involvement of local law enforcement officers.
This arrangement also allows the stations' reporter to interrogate the
perpetrators on camera.
This type of story
raises a host of complex ethical problems. We will tackle the question
whether news organizations violate professional journalism standards by
organizing the sting that it then covers as news.
At first blush,
the answer seems to be yes. The practice violates the standard professional
rules that journalists should not create the news or use deceptive practices
when covering stories. The Society of Professional Journalists
Code of Ethics, for instance, admonishes journalists to "avoid undercover
or other surreptitious methods of gathering information except when traditional
open methods will not yield information vital to the public." Similarly,
the National Press Photographers Association Code says
that photojournalists should not "intentionally contribute to, alter, or
seek to alter or influence events." At the same time, both codes recognize
that citizens need to be fully informed on issues that require public interest
and action.
Pedophilia is
a horrific crime against children, and pointing out that pedophiles target
children on the Internet is certainly in the public interest. A graphic
visual demonstration of the ease with which pedophiles can engage children
in illegal activity can drive home the point that parents, police and public
officials need to be concerned about this problem.
When the first
stories aired in 2003, we believe that WTMJ could legitimately argue that
it was alerting parents to a problem that was underappreciated by society.
However, once the story was told repeatedly, locally and nationally, the
calculation changed.
As the story itself
evolved, the nature of the coverage should have evolved as well. Initially,
police were apparently reluctant to participate in stings involving the
Perverted Justice Web site volunteers because they didn't trust their methods.
Since then, the standards used by the folks at Perverted Justice for outing
pedophiles have changed. Some police departments are now willing to work
with the Web site volunteers. In fact, the Web site reports that some authorities
now ask the site's coordinators for help in arranging stings.
At some point
in this process (and we believe that it has come and gone), the journalist's
job as organizer should have been finished. News stations should let the
police organize the busts, and the authorities, in turn, can address the
problems related to deception and interrogations.
That would leave
the journalists free to cover such busts objectively and to pursue the
story in new directions, including the laws proposed and passed, programs
implemented, follow-ups on police actions, the judicial process and the
like.
And the rest of
us would no longer be suspicious of encounters between pedophiles and "posers"
that appear to be staged so a TV reporter can sanctimoniously apply a scarlet
letter before cops cuff the perp and take him away, all on-camera and in
the name of yielding "information vital to the public" that cannot be obtained
any other way.
© Karen Slattery
and Mark Doremus
Karen Slattery
is an associate professor in the College of Communication at Marquette
University. She teaches courses related to broadcast journalism, media
ethics, and qualitative research methods.
Mark Doremus has
a Ph.D. in Journalism and Mass Communication and a law degree from the
University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is now employed as a research
administrator. He worked in television news for 13 years in various capacities,
primarily as a news reporter-photographer. He still cares deeply about
the press, in all its forms, and its practitioners. He met his wife and
co-columnist, Karen Slattery, when they were both working in local television
news.
--Digital Journalist--
This article first
appeared in the August 2006 edition of Digital Journalist, and is reprinted
with permission.
External Links:
Digital
Journalist.
Digital
Journalist Discussion Forum.
National
Press Photographers Association Code.
Perverted-justice.com
Society
of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics.
WTMJ
WTMJ
Stings.
