UNDERCOVER WORK ETHICALLY SHAKY

Did Teen Journalist's Scrutiny of Military Recruiting Practices Cross the Line

Military recruiters took the bait big time when high school journalist
David McSwane posed as high school dropout and marijuana smoker. The
recruiters, apparently desperate to find kids willing to join the
military and risk death in Iraq, allegedly helped fix McSwane up with
a fake diploma and a clean drug test.

The Rocky Mountain News' coverage of McSwane's story, which was first
published in Arvada West High School's newspaper and then appeared on
CBS 4 News, failed to address whether it's proper for journalists to
entrap their subjects. In a May 20 News story, McSwane said he was
inspired by Black Like Me, the 1961 book about a white man who colored
his skin and wrote about life as a black in the South.

But unlike the journalist who wrote Black Like Me, McSwane set out to
trigger wrongdoing, not just report on what he found when he went
under cover.

Is it the role of a journalist to deliberately try to make someone
break the law - rather than simply report on evidence of
lawbreaking?

"I wouldn't characterize this as entrapment," Denver Post columnist
and co-chair of the Society of Professional Journalists' Ethics
Committee Fred Brown e-mailed me Saturday in response to my question
about whether it was ethical for McSwane to entrap the recruiters.

"David McSwane may have misrepresented himself as a dropout druggie
toying with the possibility of military service, when he was in fact
an honors-level student looking for a 'cool' story," Brown wrote. "But
it wasn't a long stretch. He was still a high school student. And it's
doubtful the recruiter was driven to do things he wouldn't have
considered anyway."

It's probably true that the recruiters were acting unethically before
McSwane presented himself to them.

And how else could McSwane have exposed their ugly recruitment
tactics?

Still, call me weak, but I don't want a journalist tempting me to buy
a stolen radio, purchase illegal drugs, or cheat at my job - and then
splash my name all over the newspaper when I do the wrong thing.

I don't want a journalist dangling bait in front of me and trying to
get me to break the law.

Before they go undercover, journalists should consider that their
methods of "reporting" could cause people to do bad stuff that they
might not ordinarily do.

Reporters should talk early and often. Prior to the vote on the Denver
justice center, I twice asked the Post's Karen Crummy to comment on
her work covering the issue. Both times she declined, saying she was
in the midst of writing on the topic. She referred me to editors.

Last week, I asked Crummy in an e-mail to explain why she did not want
to talk to me during the campaign. She wrote:

"I did not want to speak to you about the campaign while I was
covering the campaign. Additionally, it is my policy that my editors
should comment on our coverage of an issue." She did not respond to my
e-mails seeking elaboration and clarification.

Reporters demand interviews and accountability from public officials
and regular folks every day - and they rightfully get bent out of
shape when their requests for interviews are denied. So, reporters
should answer questions about their own work, regardless of when
they're asked. They should try to answer any question from readers,
critics, anyone. It's hypocritical not to.

More people will trust the news media if journalists defend what they
do and explain why they do it - freely, openly, and as frequently as
possible.

The good news is that out of the hundred or more reporters I've
interviewed over the years, only a handful - like Crummy - have put up
any roadblocks. Most journalists want to do the right thing.

Talk radio is entertainment, not journalism. "Callers angry that
Denver West High School's yearbook features a cover theme written in
Spanish burned up Denver's talk-radio airwaves Tuesday morning."

So began a May 18 News story. Sounds more like PR copy for KHOW radio,
but I can assure you it came out of the newspaper.

The News' lead paragraph implies that because callers on some talk
shows were angry, then the controversy over West's yearbook was
somehow more newsworthy. I hope not. Callers are angry on talk radio
all the time.

Serious journalists should rarely care about the latest outrage on
talk radio.

Though talk radio sometimes merits the attention of journalists,
reporters should generally resist the temptation to grab easy, and
often irrelevant, ideas for stories from talk radio shows. The talk
radio medium does not represent the pulse of the people by any stretch
of the imagination.

Stand up and the media might listen. Two people were shot and killed
in Denver on May 8: Detective Donald Young and Luis Romero Jr.

Romero's death and the investigation into the identity of his killer
seemed hopelessly lost in the wall-to-wall coverage of the Young tragedy.

But, in apparent response to the efforts of the Romero family, the
dailies did not leave Romero's death to the scrap heap of the
"Briefing" section, instead running multiple articles about the
unsolved case. This was a good decision, and the dailies should stay
on this story.