undercover shame

The New York Times cut its page size today, but does anyone really care?

The paper also ran a long apology citing the number of times they misspelled Alberto Gonzales’s name. Third year journalism ethics says this is the only way to go—newspapers should declare all mistakes they make so the public can judge them accordingly.

So here’s another ethical dilemma—NBC’s Dateline sent in an undercover reporter to secretly cover DEF CON and BlackHat gatherings.

Some background: DEF CON is a convention for underground hackers that took place in early August in Las Vegas. Hackers met for seminars, speakers, and to bond over their hobby of computer hacking.

BlackHat is another such convention, discussing computer and digital screening. Their website claims to combine the best of government, hackers, and researchers at forums across the world. They provide education, briefings, and training.

Essentially, these conventions are a breeding ground for communication and security breakthrough, and Dateline’s curiosity was too strong.

Michelle Madigan of Dateline attempted to secretly film these professional security mongers—no surprise she didn’t get away with it then. She even told organizers and made it pretty obvious that she was secretly taping and recording.

If she made it obvious, it must be ethical, right? They must have known what she was doing. Dateline uses tactics like this all the time (most famously to help break down an internet porn ring), but are they really ethical, and should we care if they are helping?

Yes, we should care, and no, they aren’t ethical. Dateline did help shut down that internet porn ring, but in doing so they took a side and threw impartiality out the window. They worked alongside police, and in the end we probably got more of their side of the story than any other.

At DEF CON, organizers turned the tables on the Dateline reporter and played a game called “spot the undercover reporter”. I’m not sure if hacking conventions are really doing much harm, so this reporter deserved to be ridiculed for her bad ethics.

It’s stuff like this that gives journalism a sensationalist, bad name.