Sticky Issues in Gumshoe Journalism

By Laurence Zuckerman

A TV camera with a pinhole-size lens concealed in an otherwise ordinary black lunch box, a microphone attached to the bottom of a wristwatch, a night-scope capable of recording television pictures in the dark and a high-resolution color camera so small that it can be hidden in the hollowed end of a racquetball racquet. The supply requisition for an FBI sting? No, all of the above are the latest wares available to today's investigative journalists. These items not only have made it possible for reporters to do things they never could have done before but have also forced them to deal with an increasingly sticky issue: Just when is the use of such deceptive devices legal and ethical?

Hidden cameras are not a new phenomenon for journalists. In the early 1960s, the makers of a CBS Reports documentary concealed an 8-mm camera and a microphone in a lunch box to expose a Boston locksmith's store that was serving as a bookie joint. But more than a year after the Miami Herald's controversial surveillance of Gary Hart's Washington town house effectively ended his chances of winning the Democratic presidential nomination, investigative reporters find themselves with a sophisticated arsenal of cameras and microphones that make it easier than ever to collect broadcast- quality sound and video without arousing the slightest suspicion. "This new technology," says Attorney Paul Hannah, who represents both TV stations and newspapers, "raises questions that reporters never had to deal with 20 years ago."

The new high-tech tools of the trade, many of which were displayed at the annual convention of investigative reporters and editors in Minneapolis in June, have so far proved most useful to TV reporters. After a four-month-old infant was abducted from a Philadelphia hospital last April, local station WCAU-TV decided to test hospital security. A reporter and cameraman equipped with a tiny Toshiba camera the size of a Magic Marker strolled unquestioned past the visitors' desk and proceeded to wander freely up and down several corridors, talking with children in the play areas. Says WCAU News Director Jay Newman: "We were able to document very visibly that although the hospital said it had security procedures, they were in fact not being followed." Other stations have used hidden cameras to expose everything from public employees out drinking at the taxpayers' expense to the sale of illicit drugs. A few years ago, WCCO-TV in Minneapolis hid a camera in the ceiling of a restaurant and recorded an assistant city attorney admitting he had fixed parking tickets. A microphone concealed in a vase on the table recorded the sound.

Such dramatic reports often make news themselves, boosting a station's prestige and even its ratings -- a fact that is not lost on station managers. "With technology comes a greater burden of responsibility," says Newman of WCAU. "The temptation to do it just because you can has got to be resisted." Newman says he will not resort to stealth until his reporters have answered several questions: Can the story be documented without the use of a hidden camera? Are we sure that the premise of the story is accurate? "You don't go into a situation with a hidden camera just fishing," says Mark Feldstein, an investigative reporter at WUSA-TV in Washington.

But there really are few rules. Reporters and news directors say they routinely consult station lawyers before they go undercover. But in most states, what constitutes an invasion of privacy is a subjective matter that is often left up to the discretion of a jury. When it comes to videotaping, says & Attorney Hannah, "the bedroom is absolutely inviolate. A street is absolutely public. Everything in between is part of a gray area." On the other hand, making voice recordings without the agreement of at least one party in the conversation (and in some states both participants) is illegal.

Obviously, just abiding by the law is not enough. "The new technology may be running ten years ahead of the law," says Everette Dennis, executive director of the Gannett Center for Media Studies. "Subterfuge is almost never ethical," he adds, though he concedes that it can be resorted to "in the most extreme circumstances . . . when information is not available through any other source and it is profoundly important to the public interest. And that is very rare."

Others take an even stricter line. "Investigative journalism doesn't give us the right to become investigative detectives," says Marvin Kalb, the veteran network diplomatic correspondent who is now director of Harvard University's Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. Kalb says a reporter crosses an ethical line when he pretends to be someone other than a journalist. "I don't think we should be in the business of deceiving people," he says.

Many reporters agree. "Ninety-five percent of the surveillance you see on television is unnecessary," says Don Ray, an investigative producer for KCBS- TV in Los Angeles. "It's a bad time for the media, and the less we look sneaky, the better."

But others insist that hidden cameras are an important reporting tool. Former CBS News President Richard Salant says he would no sooner prohibit their use than he would "rule out the use of a reporter's eyes and ears." Pam Zekman, who has won numerous honors for her investigative reports for WBBM-TV in Chicago, argues that hidden cameras can actually enhance journalism's credibility. "The more pictures you have and the more documents you can show," she says, "the more people can reach their own conclusions." The key, of course, is to know when a journalist's tactics become more egregious than the sin he or she is investigating. That is an issue that would be much more hotly debated if the Miami Herald snoops had staked out Hart with a lunch-box camera and a hidden microphone.

With reporting by Naushad S. Mehta/New York