Chapter 5-Transparency
This is an article I found while doing research for my project. So, I thought I would use it for my last and final blog. It’s actually about blogs. How weird?
“The news media have more watchdogs today than anytime in history.”
This statement is in true support of what we’re experiencing in modern news delivery and how blogs are impacting not only the delivery but the “watch dog” role within the old media and the new media.
“The newest source of media criticism is the variety of blogs that have sprung up in recent years. Suddenly there are about 10 million more media critics than there were 10 years ago. I actually think there are a lot of bloggers who are so good at it that I sort of wish they would be picked up by mainstream outlets and do both.”
What a testament to the new watch do role bloggers have in society today!
This article outlines the first amendment and how it is so prevalent and important in today’s society (and probably more important than ever before).
Within the text Smith outlines this importance of this new media, “The blogs police the media in two ways. Sometimes they challenge the validity of media report…Perhaps the most popular task for many bloggers is to find bias in what they call MSM (mainstream media). Blogs are often politically partisan and consistently argue that the MSM is too liberal or too conservative.
If you read on in the article it goes on about Blogs new roles and influences just like the chapter outlined. It speaks volumes about their impact and really points out that they are here to say and will continue to be more influential and powerful in the future.
First Amendment anniversary finds press in sea change
Advertisement
By Gene Policinski
First Amendment Center
Wed Dec 17, 2008, 10:38 AM CST
Story Tools: Email This Email This | Print This Print This
WASHINGTON, D.C, -
As the First Amendment marks its 217th anniversary on Dec. 15, here’s a quick look at where our basic freedoms stand – starting with a free press:
As 2008 ends, most newspapers are shrinking dramatically in size, staffing, circulation. At least a few sizable cities – including, at one point, Portland, Maine – have faced the possibility of having no local daily newspaper at all. Analysts predict similar changes in local and network broadcasting in 2009.
Ironically, this “free press” vanishing act is propelled in no small part by “free media” (as in “no charge”). Even as the Internet and new technology spur new and ever-more-varied methods of sending and receiving news and information, they are helping to decimate once-lucrative business models that supported what we now call mainstream media.
In one sense, this latest American media revolution also is about opportunity, and a return to its individual, locally owned, locally focused roots. In our early history the emphasis was on the opportunities of a free press, not its size or wealth. No longer was a king’s license required, a king’s voice the only one heard, or a king’s wrath to be feared.
Echoing that history, an explosion of community bloggers and community online ventures is providing commentary and some reporting, and Yahoo, Google, America Online and other sites are piling up regular users though they originate little reporting of their own.
But while there’s more news and information available, the First Amendment question of the year – and likely for the next several years – is whether the “watchdog” role of a free press will carry over from the “dead tree” media to their electronic progeny. Some blogs fill the bill: Multiple sites reporting on the U.S. Supreme Court are an example. But there is no new-media machinery yet in place to provide most of us with expert, year-after-year reporting and tracking of courts, legislatures, police departments, schools and taxes.
A free press as an effective check on government is what the nation’s Founders had in mind when they provided constitutional shelter for scribes of their time and ours. Individual expression and opinion are vital in a democracy, but so are accurate information and public accountability. And for more than two centuries, we’ve been able to expect all of that from a free press – even if it cost us some coins to purchase the means of reporting.
New technology is creating other First Amendment challenges, as well:
• President-elect Obama’s successful fundraising, with a powerful online component, attracted $750 million as he spurned public funding. In the process he challenged a creaky system of federal campaign-finance limits that some maintain improperly limit free speech. In this year’s State of the First Amendment national survey, support declined for limits on contributions.
• Social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace spawned controversies ranging from defamation flaps between school administrators and students to a trend involving teens’ sending naked or semi-naked pictures of themselves to friends – triggering child-pornography charges.
• Spurred by a teen’s suicide, Missouri lawmakers enacted a law making online harassment – “cyberbullying” – a crime.
Not all First Amendment challenges are electronic in nature:
• In Boston, a Rastafarian man will get his day in an appeals court challenging as religious discrimination a Jiffy Lube company policy requiring him to cut his hair and shave off his beard. A lower court held the company had a right to control its public image and that it did not have to exempt the employee because of his beliefs.
• Legal fights erupted in several state courts over vanity or specialty license plates, prompted by individuals seeking to display creative messages or by state-approved slogans like “In God We Trust” or “Choose Life.”
• Laws to ban picketing at military funerals were challenged in several Midwestern courts, and a small protest group vowed to fight criminal charges.
• On a Sunday in September, pastors in as many as 22 states defied an Internal Revenue Service regulation barring direct candidate endorsement from the pulpit under penalty of their churches’ losing tax-exempt status.
And with the holiday season, one more First Amendment debate is worth noting. In Washington state, officials permitted atheists to post a message alongside a Capitol hallway Nativity scene. That upset some, including demonstrators who marched around the building with protest signs – exercising their rights of free speech, free press, assembly and petition.
All in all, a pretty vigorous 2008 workout for a 217-year-old.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Chapter 10 BLOG 8
Chapter 10-Reporting the News
This is an article about the actual topic at hand discussed in Chapter 10 involving when is deception justified in journalism.
This is a great example of how it impacts news stories, news, newspapers, editors, and journalists alike.
The “Improving the profession” in the book is a good reference to follow while reading this article and it opened my eyes to how much deception really plays in writing news stories.
The guidelines provided in the book are useful and make a lot of sense when it comes down to evaluating stories and journalists that use this type of method in writing the story.
• When the information obtained is of profound importance.
• When all other alternatives have been exhausted.
• When journalists involved are willing to disclose the nature of the deception and reason for it.
• When the individuals involved and their news organizations apply excellence.
• When the harm prevented revealed through deception outweighs any harm caused by the act of deception.
Also, like the article outlines there is harm involved by using deception as a tactic:
• The impact on journalistic credibility.
• The motivations for the actions.
• The deceptive act in relation to their editorial mission.
• The legal implications of the action.
• The consistency of reasoning and their action.
Here is the article:
The Maverick
Veteran editor and transparency maven Steve Smith follows the rules he believes in—his own.
By Megan Miller
Miller (mmiller@ajr.umd.edu) is an AJR editorial assistant.
Steven A. Smith's career brings to mind a character from a 1950s western. The Seattle Times once called him "the new sheriff in town," but it seems more accurate to describe him as an outlaw. He's a man who's more than willing to break the rules if there's something valuable to gain, but who lives by a personal code of honor.
You can hear it in his description of his reporter years, beginning in 1973 at the Register-Guard in Eugene, Oregon. "I liked to break the rules," he remembers. "I did not honor embargoes – if I learned something, I put it in the paper. I was relentless. I was always polite, but I did not back off of sources. I'd like to think I was resourceful."
"I never got sued!" he laughs. "But it was close."
As an editor, Smith, 58, is probably best known for the Spokane Spokesman-Review's investigation of sexual misconduct by then-Mayor Jim West, which was published in May 2005. Smith authorized the employment of an outside expert to pose as a 17-year-old boy on Gay.com, to see if West would make contact. The tactic, which Smith readily calls "deception," was much debated by journalists nationwide.
Even beyond the West investigation, Smith is no stranger to controversy. He's made waves with his pursuit of newsroom transparency, which has included measures from investigating his own paper for possibly biased coverage to Webcasting daily news meetings for all the world to see. Most recently, Smith created a buzz by resigning as editor of the 88,000-circulation Spokesman-Review. He quit in October in anticipation of Publisher W. Stacey Cowles' deep staff cuts, the fourth round of downsizing since Smith arrived at the paper in July 2002.
Smith's resignation sparked serious debate in journalistic circles, including former McClatchy Washington Editor David Westphal's post on OJR questioning whether experienced editors like Smith should hang on through the tough times or just get out of the way of the next generation. Veteran editors are "handicapped by their investment in a fast-disappearing past and are sometimes slow to see how quickly the information revolution is occurring. So are they still the best people to lead newsrooms to a digital future?" asked Westphal, executive in residence at University of Southern California-Annenberg's School of Communication.
At least in his own case, Smith thinks the answer is "yes."
"I believe that my record shows that I'm as innovative, as experimental, as willing to empower young journalists who have a sense of our future as anybody in the business. So I don't think that I need to step aside to make way for new blood," Smith says.
His innovations included restructuring the Spokesman-Review's newsroom operation. Carla Savalli, former assistant managing editor for local news, gives Smith much of the credit for changing "our workflow and our culture from a one-deadline newsroom to a multiplatform information company." Under his guidance, the Spokesman-Review expanded its operation to include an active Web presence and AM radio broadcasts that began in April.
So why resign?
According to Smith, it was a question of principle, since almost half the newsroom's online staff was laid off and the paper canceled its daily radio talk show and laid off its host. "And so our multiplatform strategy, in my view, becomes impossible, and the general quality of our coverage has got to decline. It's insane to argue otherwise."
There were 104 newsroom staffers before the cuts, Smith says. Gary Graham, the Spokesman Review's new editor, says there are now 87. Smith thinks the paper can't reduce numbers that dramatically and argue that the quality is the same. "I believe in the values of journalism," he says. "I felt that I could no longer practice those values in this newsroom."
Smith's values seem inextricably connected with his heroes. He became interested in journalism at a very young age, and clearly remembers the reason.
"It was 'Superman' the TV show that did it," he says. "Clark Kent was just so cool. And I loved [Kent's editor] Perry White. The first time anybody called me 'Chief' in the newsroom, I've got to tell you, I got a little bit of a tingle. Because that's what they used to call Perry White, and he used to say 'don't call me Chief' – but I loved it."
His other role models range from larger-than-life figures–Ben Bradlee, Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow – to personal heroes like the late Knight Ridder CEO Jim Batten; Deborah Howell, his editor at the St. Paul Pioneer Press; and W. Davis "Buzz" Merritt, his boss at the Wichita Eagle. Smith credits these mentors with the quality he admires most: "the courage to do what's right in the face of long odds."
"I aim, in my own way, to emulate that boldness, that fearlessness," Smith says, "which I think is a foundational quality for an effective journalist, because otherwise we just become mouthpieces."
From Howell and Merritt especially, Smith took ideas that drove him in his career-long pursuit of civic journalism. "He believes that you do journalism because you have a civic duty to inform your readers," Savalli says. "His whole philosophy is about serving the reader, and bringing the reader into the process." Jan Schaffer, former director of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism and current executive director of J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism, calls Smith "one of the leading civic journalists in the country."
Smith believes newsroom transparency is crucial to maintaining credibility with the public and that technology is an especially useful way to achieve this goal. At the Spokesman-Review, his "Transparent Newsroom" initiative included inviting the public to news meetings, blogging about behind-the scenes decision-making, and eventually Webcasting daily news meetings.
Some of his transparency measures, the Webcasts in particular, provoked a mixed reaction from journalists inside and out of the Spokane newsroom. "I never agreed with that, and I still don't," says Savalli, who worried "about the chilling effect that would have on the robust debate that we could have in the newsroom."
"The other thing that tended to happen was that you tended to play to the camera," she says. "So you either saw people who didn't say anything at all anymore, or people who wouldn't stop talking."
While the Webcasting brought international attention, it was Smith's decision to invite an outside organization to scrutinize the quality of the Spokesman-Review's coverage that was truly unprecedented, says Washington News Council Executive Director John Hamer.
The paper had long covered River Park Square, a downtown development project by the Cowles Co. – which also owns the Spokesman-Review. "I knew the paper had gotten a lot of sniping and grumbling and criticism for what people said was not tough coverage of the project," Hamer says.
"When Steve arrived here," remembers 36-year Spokesman-Review reporter Bill Morlin, "he did inherit the whole River Park Square mess from his predecessors, and the newspaper had been pretty heavily criticized for its coverage of that. So he had a huge task on his hands when he arrived, and that was to rebuild the credibility of this newspaper in the community."
In 2006, Smith proposed that the Washington News Council audit ten years' worth of Spokesman-Review coverage on River Park Square. The council agreed on the conditions that it have complete independence and that the paper publish its findings unedited, Hamer says.
Smith "didn't get a lot of handclaps for what he did," Morlin says. "And they spent a fair amount of money on it that came out of our newsroom budget at a time when news organizations were feeling the beginnings of the economic squeeze they're in now." The project cost about $30,000, which the Spokesman-Review split evenly with the news council.
In May 2007 the paper published the complete findings, titled "Reporting on Yourself," on three full pages in agate type. The highly critical report's introduction stated, "If there is a moral to this RPS story, it is that the publisher-editor relationship got in the way of the public interest in the reporting of a sequence of events of great importance to Spokane's citizens."
The paper also ran reaction from Publisher Cowles, former Spokesman-Review Editor Chris Peck and Smith.
"Journalists are notoriously thin-skinned and defensive, and most of them will admit it," Hamer says. "Journalists hate to admit mistakes. They hate to apologize for anything. They hate to admit that they're wrong. It's in their DNA or something. But this was just an extraordinary example of willingness to be transparent, accountable and open."
Now, for only the second time in 35 years, Smith is out of the business of providing information to the public. In 2000 he was fired as editor of the Gazette in Colorado Springs. This time around, Smith stepped down on his own terms, for his own principles.
Smith is now considering his options, including a possible transition to academia. Meanwhile, he's consulting for the Oregon Daily Emerald, the University of Oregon's independent student newspaper, where he once worked as an undergraduate. He's also speaking in classrooms, working on a personal blog and "trying to stay connected until the next role comes around."
And though Smith says he's "so much less stressed out" and sleeping for the first time in a long time, he's still an editor to the core. There is a hint of regret in his voice when he remembers, almost reverently, evenings on deadline early in his tenure as managing editor of the Wichita Eagle.
He recalls looking out on the newsroom and thinking, "'My God, what comes out tomorrow morning is going to have my imprint on it. That is just absolutely amazing.' And I think at that point I knew that I was going to stay with the editing track for as long as I could.
"It's still my favorite time in any newsroom, just to stand in the door and watch what happens on an everyday kind of night, when people are just cranking and the phones are ringing, and boy, it's a beautiful sight."
This is an article about the actual topic at hand discussed in Chapter 10 involving when is deception justified in journalism.
This is a great example of how it impacts news stories, news, newspapers, editors, and journalists alike.
The “Improving the profession” in the book is a good reference to follow while reading this article and it opened my eyes to how much deception really plays in writing news stories.
The guidelines provided in the book are useful and make a lot of sense when it comes down to evaluating stories and journalists that use this type of method in writing the story.
• When the information obtained is of profound importance.
• When all other alternatives have been exhausted.
• When journalists involved are willing to disclose the nature of the deception and reason for it.
• When the individuals involved and their news organizations apply excellence.
• When the harm prevented revealed through deception outweighs any harm caused by the act of deception.
Also, like the article outlines there is harm involved by using deception as a tactic:
• The impact on journalistic credibility.
• The motivations for the actions.
• The deceptive act in relation to their editorial mission.
• The legal implications of the action.
• The consistency of reasoning and their action.
Here is the article:
The Maverick
Veteran editor and transparency maven Steve Smith follows the rules he believes in—his own.
By Megan Miller
Miller (mmiller@ajr.umd.edu) is an AJR editorial assistant.
Steven A. Smith's career brings to mind a character from a 1950s western. The Seattle Times once called him "the new sheriff in town," but it seems more accurate to describe him as an outlaw. He's a man who's more than willing to break the rules if there's something valuable to gain, but who lives by a personal code of honor.
You can hear it in his description of his reporter years, beginning in 1973 at the Register-Guard in Eugene, Oregon. "I liked to break the rules," he remembers. "I did not honor embargoes – if I learned something, I put it in the paper. I was relentless. I was always polite, but I did not back off of sources. I'd like to think I was resourceful."
"I never got sued!" he laughs. "But it was close."
As an editor, Smith, 58, is probably best known for the Spokane Spokesman-Review's investigation of sexual misconduct by then-Mayor Jim West, which was published in May 2005. Smith authorized the employment of an outside expert to pose as a 17-year-old boy on Gay.com, to see if West would make contact. The tactic, which Smith readily calls "deception," was much debated by journalists nationwide.
Even beyond the West investigation, Smith is no stranger to controversy. He's made waves with his pursuit of newsroom transparency, which has included measures from investigating his own paper for possibly biased coverage to Webcasting daily news meetings for all the world to see. Most recently, Smith created a buzz by resigning as editor of the 88,000-circulation Spokesman-Review. He quit in October in anticipation of Publisher W. Stacey Cowles' deep staff cuts, the fourth round of downsizing since Smith arrived at the paper in July 2002.
Smith's resignation sparked serious debate in journalistic circles, including former McClatchy Washington Editor David Westphal's post on OJR questioning whether experienced editors like Smith should hang on through the tough times or just get out of the way of the next generation. Veteran editors are "handicapped by their investment in a fast-disappearing past and are sometimes slow to see how quickly the information revolution is occurring. So are they still the best people to lead newsrooms to a digital future?" asked Westphal, executive in residence at University of Southern California-Annenberg's School of Communication.
At least in his own case, Smith thinks the answer is "yes."
"I believe that my record shows that I'm as innovative, as experimental, as willing to empower young journalists who have a sense of our future as anybody in the business. So I don't think that I need to step aside to make way for new blood," Smith says.
His innovations included restructuring the Spokesman-Review's newsroom operation. Carla Savalli, former assistant managing editor for local news, gives Smith much of the credit for changing "our workflow and our culture from a one-deadline newsroom to a multiplatform information company." Under his guidance, the Spokesman-Review expanded its operation to include an active Web presence and AM radio broadcasts that began in April.
So why resign?
According to Smith, it was a question of principle, since almost half the newsroom's online staff was laid off and the paper canceled its daily radio talk show and laid off its host. "And so our multiplatform strategy, in my view, becomes impossible, and the general quality of our coverage has got to decline. It's insane to argue otherwise."
There were 104 newsroom staffers before the cuts, Smith says. Gary Graham, the Spokesman Review's new editor, says there are now 87. Smith thinks the paper can't reduce numbers that dramatically and argue that the quality is the same. "I believe in the values of journalism," he says. "I felt that I could no longer practice those values in this newsroom."
Smith's values seem inextricably connected with his heroes. He became interested in journalism at a very young age, and clearly remembers the reason.
"It was 'Superman' the TV show that did it," he says. "Clark Kent was just so cool. And I loved [Kent's editor] Perry White. The first time anybody called me 'Chief' in the newsroom, I've got to tell you, I got a little bit of a tingle. Because that's what they used to call Perry White, and he used to say 'don't call me Chief' – but I loved it."
His other role models range from larger-than-life figures–Ben Bradlee, Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow – to personal heroes like the late Knight Ridder CEO Jim Batten; Deborah Howell, his editor at the St. Paul Pioneer Press; and W. Davis "Buzz" Merritt, his boss at the Wichita Eagle. Smith credits these mentors with the quality he admires most: "the courage to do what's right in the face of long odds."
"I aim, in my own way, to emulate that boldness, that fearlessness," Smith says, "which I think is a foundational quality for an effective journalist, because otherwise we just become mouthpieces."
From Howell and Merritt especially, Smith took ideas that drove him in his career-long pursuit of civic journalism. "He believes that you do journalism because you have a civic duty to inform your readers," Savalli says. "His whole philosophy is about serving the reader, and bringing the reader into the process." Jan Schaffer, former director of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism and current executive director of J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism, calls Smith "one of the leading civic journalists in the country."
Smith believes newsroom transparency is crucial to maintaining credibility with the public and that technology is an especially useful way to achieve this goal. At the Spokesman-Review, his "Transparent Newsroom" initiative included inviting the public to news meetings, blogging about behind-the scenes decision-making, and eventually Webcasting daily news meetings.
Some of his transparency measures, the Webcasts in particular, provoked a mixed reaction from journalists inside and out of the Spokane newsroom. "I never agreed with that, and I still don't," says Savalli, who worried "about the chilling effect that would have on the robust debate that we could have in the newsroom."
"The other thing that tended to happen was that you tended to play to the camera," she says. "So you either saw people who didn't say anything at all anymore, or people who wouldn't stop talking."
While the Webcasting brought international attention, it was Smith's decision to invite an outside organization to scrutinize the quality of the Spokesman-Review's coverage that was truly unprecedented, says Washington News Council Executive Director John Hamer.
The paper had long covered River Park Square, a downtown development project by the Cowles Co. – which also owns the Spokesman-Review. "I knew the paper had gotten a lot of sniping and grumbling and criticism for what people said was not tough coverage of the project," Hamer says.
"When Steve arrived here," remembers 36-year Spokesman-Review reporter Bill Morlin, "he did inherit the whole River Park Square mess from his predecessors, and the newspaper had been pretty heavily criticized for its coverage of that. So he had a huge task on his hands when he arrived, and that was to rebuild the credibility of this newspaper in the community."
In 2006, Smith proposed that the Washington News Council audit ten years' worth of Spokesman-Review coverage on River Park Square. The council agreed on the conditions that it have complete independence and that the paper publish its findings unedited, Hamer says.
Smith "didn't get a lot of handclaps for what he did," Morlin says. "And they spent a fair amount of money on it that came out of our newsroom budget at a time when news organizations were feeling the beginnings of the economic squeeze they're in now." The project cost about $30,000, which the Spokesman-Review split evenly with the news council.
In May 2007 the paper published the complete findings, titled "Reporting on Yourself," on three full pages in agate type. The highly critical report's introduction stated, "If there is a moral to this RPS story, it is that the publisher-editor relationship got in the way of the public interest in the reporting of a sequence of events of great importance to Spokane's citizens."
The paper also ran reaction from Publisher Cowles, former Spokesman-Review Editor Chris Peck and Smith.
"Journalists are notoriously thin-skinned and defensive, and most of them will admit it," Hamer says. "Journalists hate to admit mistakes. They hate to apologize for anything. They hate to admit that they're wrong. It's in their DNA or something. But this was just an extraordinary example of willingness to be transparent, accountable and open."
Now, for only the second time in 35 years, Smith is out of the business of providing information to the public. In 2000 he was fired as editor of the Gazette in Colorado Springs. This time around, Smith stepped down on his own terms, for his own principles.
Smith is now considering his options, including a possible transition to academia. Meanwhile, he's consulting for the Oregon Daily Emerald, the University of Oregon's independent student newspaper, where he once worked as an undergraduate. He's also speaking in classrooms, working on a personal blog and "trying to stay connected until the next role comes around."
And though Smith says he's "so much less stressed out" and sleeping for the first time in a long time, he's still an editor to the core. There is a hint of regret in his voice when he remembers, almost reverently, evenings on deadline early in his tenure as managing editor of the Wichita Eagle.
He recalls looking out on the newsroom and thinking, "'My God, what comes out tomorrow morning is going to have my imprint on it. That is just absolutely amazing.' And I think at that point I knew that I was going to stay with the editing track for as long as I could.
"It's still my favorite time in any newsroom, just to stand in the door and watch what happens on an everyday kind of night, when people are just cranking and the phones are ringing, and boy, it's a beautiful sight."
Chapter 10 BLOG 7
Chapter Ten: Reporting the news.
When reading this chapter I was inspired to GOOGLE search undercover reporting and this is the first article that caught my eye. This is a great example of undercover reporting and the new rebound of it occurring on television and also YOU TUBE!
This represents a controversial method that is outlined in the book and that caught my eye when reading it as well as the attention and like the book states, “public response to this article was dramatic.”
“For at least 30 years, people both in and out of journalism have been debating whether the news media’s use of undercover reporting is justified.” This is a perfect example of this ongoing debate with a very recent news story.
In evaluating this story (and others) we must ask our selves these questions that are usually centered within this ongoing debate:
Are there hidden cameras being used purely to hype the story?
Do the ends (uncovering wrongdoing) justify the means (using deception and possibly violating laws)?
Are there privacy concerns?
Are hidden cameras the best way to get the story?
How significant and widespread is the issue under investigation?
I think these are all valid questions that are outlined within the chapter and the answer in one way or another could go both ways. I think that is what makes this part of the book and the debate so hard. I think uncovering certain issues are important; however, privacy matters too!
PRESS RELEASE
Abuse Pattern Develops as Second Indiana Planned Parenthood Covers Up Statutory Rape of 13-Year-Old
Last update: 9:22 a.m. EST Dec. 16, 2008
INDIANAPOLIS, Dec 16, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Undercover footage from a second Indiana Planned Parenthood clinic shows an emerging pattern of abuse, as more clinic counselors evade their legal responsibility to report the statutory rape of young girls. The new footage is the second video in Live Action Film's "Mona Lisa Project," a series of investigations documenting how secret abortions keep young girls trapped in cycles of sexual abuse.
In the video, shot undercover this summer at a Planned Parenthood in Indianapolis, two employees state they "don't care" about the age difference between a 31-year-old man and the 13-year-old girl he was reported to have impregnated. A previously released video shot at a Bloomington Planned Parenthood showed similar results. Neither the Bloomington nor Indianapolis clinics reported the rape and both clinics counseled the 13-year-old to obtain a secret abortion across state lines where no parental consent laws applied.
At both clinics, Lila Rose, student journalist and president of Live Action, enters posing as a 13-year-old girl and discloses she is pregnant by a 31-year-old man. The Indianapolis staffer states, "We don't really care about who, what, the age of the boyfriend." She then sends Rose to a counselor, who after hearing about the 31-year-old also states, "I don't care how old he is." When Rose tells the counselor that her mother would be upset about the 31-year-old boyfriend, the counselor informs Rose that "the surrounding states don't have parental consent. I can't tell you anymore."
In Bloomington, the nurse declares, "I don't want to know how old he is" and instructs Rose to travel to an Illinois Planned Parenthood and say her 31-year-old boyfriend is only fourteen. Although the Bloomington clinic fired its nurse, Rose says this is not an isolated incident. "We have more videos documenting this pattern of law-breaking within Planned Parenthood. There are actual cases all across the country where their failure to follow state statutes has allowed predators to continue their sexual abuse of young girls."
On Monday, Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter launched an investigation of Planned Parenthood in response to the Bloomington footage. Indiana State Representative Jackie Walorski and right-to-life advocacy groups including American Life League publicly called for the investigation. In 2005, the Attorney General also sought the records of 84 Planned Parenthood patients under the age of fourteen who may have been victims of sexual abuse, but Planned Parenthood sued to prevent their release.'
Rose commends the Attorney General's efforts. "We applaud Mr. Carter's integrity and urge him to conduct a thorough and complete investigation, despite any political attacks Planned Parenthood may attempt against him personally or his office."
Rose challenges Planned Parenthood to cooperate. "Planned Parenthood must release files they have previously sued to keep private and allow state authorities to conduct a complete investigation." She adds, "Mandatory reporting laws are necessary for the protection of young girls, and Planned Parenthood must not be allowed to sabotage them."
The video can be viewed at www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTxsWZz9whg and can also be found with more information on The Mona Lisa Project at LiveActionFilms.org. For interview or special requests for copies of footage and documentation, please contact lilarose@liveactionfilms.org.
When reading this chapter I was inspired to GOOGLE search undercover reporting and this is the first article that caught my eye. This is a great example of undercover reporting and the new rebound of it occurring on television and also YOU TUBE!
This represents a controversial method that is outlined in the book and that caught my eye when reading it as well as the attention and like the book states, “public response to this article was dramatic.”
“For at least 30 years, people both in and out of journalism have been debating whether the news media’s use of undercover reporting is justified.” This is a perfect example of this ongoing debate with a very recent news story.
In evaluating this story (and others) we must ask our selves these questions that are usually centered within this ongoing debate:
Are there hidden cameras being used purely to hype the story?
Do the ends (uncovering wrongdoing) justify the means (using deception and possibly violating laws)?
Are there privacy concerns?
Are hidden cameras the best way to get the story?
How significant and widespread is the issue under investigation?
I think these are all valid questions that are outlined within the chapter and the answer in one way or another could go both ways. I think that is what makes this part of the book and the debate so hard. I think uncovering certain issues are important; however, privacy matters too!
PRESS RELEASE
Abuse Pattern Develops as Second Indiana Planned Parenthood Covers Up Statutory Rape of 13-Year-Old
Last update: 9:22 a.m. EST Dec. 16, 2008
INDIANAPOLIS, Dec 16, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Undercover footage from a second Indiana Planned Parenthood clinic shows an emerging pattern of abuse, as more clinic counselors evade their legal responsibility to report the statutory rape of young girls. The new footage is the second video in Live Action Film's "Mona Lisa Project," a series of investigations documenting how secret abortions keep young girls trapped in cycles of sexual abuse.
In the video, shot undercover this summer at a Planned Parenthood in Indianapolis, two employees state they "don't care" about the age difference between a 31-year-old man and the 13-year-old girl he was reported to have impregnated. A previously released video shot at a Bloomington Planned Parenthood showed similar results. Neither the Bloomington nor Indianapolis clinics reported the rape and both clinics counseled the 13-year-old to obtain a secret abortion across state lines where no parental consent laws applied.
At both clinics, Lila Rose, student journalist and president of Live Action, enters posing as a 13-year-old girl and discloses she is pregnant by a 31-year-old man. The Indianapolis staffer states, "We don't really care about who, what, the age of the boyfriend." She then sends Rose to a counselor, who after hearing about the 31-year-old also states, "I don't care how old he is." When Rose tells the counselor that her mother would be upset about the 31-year-old boyfriend, the counselor informs Rose that "the surrounding states don't have parental consent. I can't tell you anymore."
In Bloomington, the nurse declares, "I don't want to know how old he is" and instructs Rose to travel to an Illinois Planned Parenthood and say her 31-year-old boyfriend is only fourteen. Although the Bloomington clinic fired its nurse, Rose says this is not an isolated incident. "We have more videos documenting this pattern of law-breaking within Planned Parenthood. There are actual cases all across the country where their failure to follow state statutes has allowed predators to continue their sexual abuse of young girls."
On Monday, Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter launched an investigation of Planned Parenthood in response to the Bloomington footage. Indiana State Representative Jackie Walorski and right-to-life advocacy groups including American Life League publicly called for the investigation. In 2005, the Attorney General also sought the records of 84 Planned Parenthood patients under the age of fourteen who may have been victims of sexual abuse, but Planned Parenthood sued to prevent their release.'
Rose commends the Attorney General's efforts. "We applaud Mr. Carter's integrity and urge him to conduct a thorough and complete investigation, despite any political attacks Planned Parenthood may attempt against him personally or his office."
Rose challenges Planned Parenthood to cooperate. "Planned Parenthood must release files they have previously sued to keep private and allow state authorities to conduct a complete investigation." She adds, "Mandatory reporting laws are necessary for the protection of young girls, and Planned Parenthood must not be allowed to sabotage them."
The video can be viewed at www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTxsWZz9whg and can also be found with more information on The Mona Lisa Project at LiveActionFilms.org. For interview or special requests for copies of footage and documentation, please contact lilarose@liveactionfilms.org.
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