Is it ever okay for journalists to lie to get a story?

in the era of falling faith In the news media, it is important that journalists do not engage in news-gathering practices that further damage their credibility. Thanks to the rise of social media, misinformation and disinformation are rampant. Trust matters in news, so we can tell fact from fiction. Without it, democracy suffers.

In our new book, Undercover Reporting, Deception and Betrayal in Journalism, we ask whether deception is ever an acceptable method for journalists. In other words, is it okay to lie to a target in order to get the story?

We find that it can be morally justifiable in very specific circumstances. We offer a six-point checklist for journalists (and viewers) to examine whether deception and betrayal are warranted.

Fraud is one of the most common ethical problems in journalism. It ranges from misrepresentation to the seriousness of the use of undercover reporting.

In fact, it is so common that some argue that it is inherent in what journalists do. For example, the late American author and journalist Janet Malcolm wrote in her famous book Journalist and AssassinSaid in its opening paragraph:

Every journalist who is neither too stupid nor too full of himself [sic] Paying attention to what is going on knows that what he does is morally inexcusable. He is the type of self-confident person who preys on people’s vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gains their trust, and betrays them without remorse.

While we argue that Malcolm takes his argument too far, we present a series of case studies that illustrate not only the extent of deceptive practices in contemporary journalism, but their seriousness.

The three case studies are drawn from high-profile undercover operations or acts of deception.

concern of use by a Cambridge Analytica Of the data collected by Facebook on its 87 million users worldwide. These data were used in 2016 to influence elections in several countries, including the United States.

was involved in another intrusion al Jazeera of the National Rifle Association in the US. It was then repeated in 2019 with the One Nation Party in Australia.

The third case is the defrauding and defrauding by Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World newspaper by hacking the mobile phones of thousands of innocent people in Britain. This is perhaps the biggest example of journalists failing their moral duty in Britain in the last century.

Based on our investigation of these cases, including interviews with prominent journalists, and the work of two distinguished American journalists and scholars, Bill Kovach and Tom RosensteelWe developed our own six-point framework for assessing the moral justification for the use of covert techniques, which also include alibi and entrapment.

Read more:
Hacking trial verdict: Coulson guilty and Brooks free, but end of an era for red top

Using this test, we concluded that the action against Cambridge Analytica was ethically justified. It told the public important truths that we would not have known otherwise. Most notable of these was that Cambridge Analytica was in the business of interfering with sovereign elections – a direct threat to the democratic good.

But we also find that the campaigns against the NRA and One Nation were not fair; Nor can there be any way phone hacking of celebrities and common citizens like the murdered schoolgirl millie dowler Can ever be justified in preparing stories for the News of the World.

Our framework includes these six questions:

1. Is the information sufficiently important to the public interest to justify the deception?

2. Were other methods considered and was cheating the only way to get the story?

3. Was the use of deception disclosed to the audience and the reasons for it explained?

4. Were there reasonable grounds for suspecting that the target of the fraud was engaged in an activity prejudicial to the public interest?

5. Was the operation carried out with a risk strategy so that it does not jeopardize the formal investigation by the competent authorities?

6. Does the test of “substantially significant” to the public interest involve an objective assessment of harm or wrongdoing?

Let us consider another case study to look at other aspects of deception and betrayal.

It deals with the deceptive practice known by the common name of “hybrid journalism”. This is where advertising is presented in such a way that it is difficult to separate from the news.

It is known by many names such as “branded content”, “sponsored content” or “native advertising”. Recently, another label has come into vogue: “From our partners”. Reputable platforms use typography that differentiates it from news content, but less reputable platforms make it difficult to differentiate one from the other.

Journalists also engage in many deceptive practices on a daily basis. These include failing to declare oneself a journalist; Attempting to ingratiate oneself with someone by feigning romantic interest in them; agreeing to publish information believed to be untrue in order to serve the interests of a valuable source; and ambushing a subject by opening a microphone or moving a camera when the subject has no reason to think they are being recorded.

As these case studies show, deception and betrayal in journalism take many forms, and the ethical judgments surrounding them are far from straightforward. However, they are not inherent to the practice of journalism. Whether they are justified must be closely scrutinized, as public trust in the media is at stake.