Deception for Journalism's Sake: A Database

Deception for Journalism's Sake: A Database

Asylums Undercover

Since the 1870s, journalists have been posing as patients or attendants to expose horrid conditions and treatment inside mental hospitals. Nellie Bly, incidentally, was not the first. 

asylums, insane asylum, posed as, worked as

Other People's Work

Reporters encounter or inhabit the lives of very hard-laboring others.

class passing, day laborers, low-wage workers, mercenaries, migrants, posed as, tramps, unemployed, worked as

Undercover Journalism Debated

Undercover journalism has been the subject of heated discussions, especially since the late 1970s, and whenever an undercover sting causes a stir.

controversy, debate, discussion, food lion. turkmenistan, MIrage Tavern

Lapses

These are examples of undercover reportage that were considered to have crossed ethical lines or that caused major legal wrangles.

Working with Migrants; Shadowing the Undocumented

Reporters have worked as migrant laborers and shadowed undocumented workers crossing the border into the United States.

migrant workers, posed as, shadowed, undocumented workers, worked as

Jail Time Undercover

Reporters have worked as guards or gotten themselves arrested -- sometimes with the aid of authorities and sometimes without -- to investigate conditions inside prisons and jails.

Ben Bagdikian, Charles Howe, Nellie Bly, Pierre Salinger, posed as, R.H. Ring, Richard H. Stewart, Ted Conover, Tim Findley

Antebellum Undercover

Redpath, Olcott, Richardson and Thomson all went South for the New York Tribune and produced reporting undercover in the run-up to the Civil War.

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"Blackbirding" - The Slave System's Just-as-Evil Twin?

Journalists from the United States and Australia get inside the post-Civil War practice of recruiting Pacific Islanders to work the world's non-U.S. plantations on extended contracts of indenture.

colonialism, George Morrison, indenture, J.D. Melvin, missionaries, San Francisco Chronicle, slave ships, slavery, The Age, The Argus, the south, Undercover, W.H. Brommage