Was what I did unethical?

When I first talked to the editor at Kingston Life about doing a story about poverty and the politics surrounding the issue, I knew that I had to do something different to sell the story. I also knew I had to get a better idea of what I was writing about. So I decided that part of the story would entail me going homeless to experience first-hand the front line social services in the city as well as get an idea of what it was like to be homeless in Kingston.

To be clear, I never expected to gain a deep, full understanding of what it means to be homeless, nor did I believe that my time on the street would make me an expert on the subject. What I wanted to do was — to borrow a cliché — dip my toe into it. I had written about poverty during my time at the Whig-Standard, but always as an observer, never a participant. I always felt like there was a thin layer of film separating me from the story. I decided to strip that away.

I’m here as part of 72 hours on the streets, not to understand homelessness or poverty, but to get a sense of it and to experience the services provided to Kingstonians in need.
– From Ready to do Better?

Misrepresenting oneself, or going undercover, is not a simple decision to make for any journalist. There are ethical decisions that have to be made usually in consultation with one or more members of the outlet’s editorial department. The Centre for Investigative Journalism helped produce a field manual for investigative reporting that while targeted at an African audience, is still applicable to journalists around the world. It is also helpful for news consumers trying to understand how a journalist decides when to misrepresent oneself as part of a story.

‘Truth-telling’ is what journalism is about, and truthfulness is a standard we apply to those we write about. We open our profession to the charge of double standards whenever we deceive, and it may work against us in terms of public reaction, trust from potential sources, or court decisions. We are also not dealing fairly with our sources, using the power of our access to covert technology gives us, to trick them out of information.
– Investigative Journalism Manual, ch. 8, p. 14

Misrepresenting oneself can take many forms, as the manual points out. It can be anything from simply not identifying oneself as a journalist in a situation where one should identify oneself, to deliberately providing a fake identity, to secretly filming or recording a person or event without the knowledge of the other parties involved. The ethical dilemmas compound at each level, but the decision-making usually involves answering a few questions. The questions the manual provides, courtesy Bob Steele from the Poynter Institute, are:

• Have all other methods of collecting/obtaining the information needed for the story been exhausted?
• Are reporters involved willing to disclose the methods they used and their motives both to the parties they deceived and to the public?
• Will the reporting prevent a harm greater than that caused by the deception?

As Steele says in the manual, “winning a prize; beating the competition; getting the story more easily and cheaply; because everybody’s doing it; because the sources themselves are unethical” is not a justifiable reason to misrepresent oneself during a story.

In my case, I thought about being open about who I was when I arrived at various social services. My problem was that I was concerned, based on past experiences, that I would be denied entry based on privacy concerns. This was motivating factor number one: In a sense, I had exhausted all other avenues to attaining the information I needed. Also, I was not solely looking for information on the people who used the various services — I was also trying to get a feel for them myself. I wanted as authentic an experience as possible, something that I worried wouldn’t happen, again, based on past experiences.

I disclosed my methods to the readers in the story. I said that I went homeless for 72 hours to get a feel for the services, but I should have put more detail into why I did what I did. Hence this posting. As well, I contacted service providers I visited and explained who I was and what I had done. In one case, one of the service providers was happy to talk with me about the experience; in another, I never heard back from the provider after leaving a message.

Finally, I turned to my ethical compass, the man I call Dr. Ethics — or Dr. E for short. When it comes to the idea of social justice, which partly framed the piece, the experience is part of the story to bring the reader face-to-face with a reality many won’t know or understand. In that case, Dr. E explained, the experience of the journalist (me) is part of the social justice credo of becoming part of the community or issue being studied. In a sense, it is a deception that could prevent further harm in the future.

Honestly, I was not entirely comfortable with what I was doing, but based on the above questions, I felt more at ease with my decision and my actions.

For more on journalism ethics, check out Reporters’ Resources, Journalism Ethics for the Global Citizen and the Canadian Association of Journalists ethics committee. As well, a detailed evaluation of poor undercover journalism in the ABC-Food Lion case is available here.