Deception for Journalism's Sake: A Database

Deception for Journalism's Sake: A Database

Undercover in U.S. Political Campaigns

Going undercover as volunteers or invited guests has gotten reporters an inside look at some U.S. political campaigns. So has shadowing the candidates in their off-hours. 

Barack Obama, campaign, George Bush, Hillary Clinton, presidential, U.S. political campaigns, worked as

Quacks, Thieves, Scam Artists and Hucksters

These are stings to expose scam artists, quacks and hucksters who prey on the needs or naivete of their customers, clients, or patients.

black arts, charletons, fortune tellers, hidden cameras, hucksters, mesmerists, posed as client, posed as patient, quackery, quacks, scam artists, stem cells, thieves, witches

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.

antebellum, civil war, Facts of Slavery, John Brown, posed as, slave auctions, south, southern newspapers, used code

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

Education Undercover

Reporters have presented as teachers or students to get an inside view of what goes on in schools and colleges.

posed as, student, teacher, 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

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

Infiltrating the Far Extremes

Journalists who infiltrated U.S.-based Nazi bunds, the Ku Klux Klan, the Gomorrah, and other secret societies and closed groups.

joined, Ku Klux Klan, lived as, Nazis, posed as, White Socialists, White Supremacists