Deception for Journalism's Sake: A Database

Deception for Journalism's Sake: A Database

"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

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

Young Conservatives Investigate

The work of groups such as James O'Keefe's Project Veritas and Lila Rose's LiveAction and their undercover operations.

ACORN, census, conservative activism, James O'Keefe, medicare, NPR, planned parenthood, posed as, Undercover, Veritas, video

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

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

Watchdogs in the Public Interest

Waste, fraud, graft, laxity, dilapidated conditions, corruption: Reporters have often used undercover tactics to investigate.

graft, insurance, lobbyists, posed as, poverty programs, trucking, vote fraud, Welfare, worked as

Homelessness, Down-and-Out, Broke

Among the most common of poses: journalists who elect to live as tramps, the homeless, or the abject poor.

hoboes, homelessness, lived among, lived among, posed as, posed as, tramps

Medicare and Medicaid Fraud

Medicare and Medicaid fraud have been perennial reporting topics since the 1960s, often requiring undercover techniques to amass specific details.

fraud, medicaid, medicare, posed as patient, presented as patient, scam, undercover