May 15, 2007

Not All Undercover Journalists Are Equal

Here is a tale of two breeds of undercover journalists. One has been celebrated by the national media and journalism organizations. The other has been shunned. One has champions in Congress. The other is facing litigation.

Both engaged in sting operations with secret cameras catching their targets on videotape. Both were deceptive about their true identities and life circumstances. Both exposed their targets' aggressive methods and law-subverting recruitment tactics. But you've probably only heard of the efforts of one of these breeds. You'll know why in a moment.

Over the past several years, local and national news outlets have conducted stings on military recruiters. Last week, a Tennessee station in Nashville set up hidden cameras and reported that it had caught Army recruiters telling an undercover producer posing as a recruit that taking medication for depression would not disqualify a recruit from serving. The Democrat chairman of a House Armed Services subcommittee is now urging an Army probe of recruiting practices and the mentally ill based on the TV station's report.

Last fall, ABC News and New York affiliate WABC enlisted students to help them in a similar gotcha game with recruiters. They armed the kids with hidden video cameras for visits to 10 Army recruitment offices in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The journalists accused the recruiters of misleading the students to get them to enlist. The ABC News sting came on the heels of a Colorado student's undercover operation in Denver in 2005. David McSwane, a high school honors student, posed as a dropout and druggie. "I wanted to do something cool, go undercover and do something unusual," he told the Rocky Mountain News. [Penchant for 'cool' led to big story By John Aguilar, May 19, 2005]McSwane deliberately failed a high school equivalency test, caught recruiters on tape driving him to purchase a detox kit, and reported that they urged him to obtain a phony diploma. A local CBS station picked up the story—prompting the Army to shut down its recruiting stations nationwide for ethics training.

McSwane earned a "laurel" from the prestigious Columbia Journalism Review "for conduct most becoming" and announced he was headed to journalism school. His reporting garnered attention from the New York Times to Editor and Publisher—and spawned copycats like those at ABC News.

No such laurels have been awarded to Lila Rose, however. And none will be forthcoming, I predict. Rose is an 18-year-old student journalist at UCLA. Like McSwane and his breed of undercover reporters, she surreptitiously infiltrated a massive organization that enlists young people. Like McSwane and his breed of undercover reporters, Rose exposed deceptive practices. Rose posed as a 15-year-old seeking the services and advice of her target. Like McSwane and his breed of undercover reporters, she caught her targets urging her to lie and evade the law in order to sign her up.

But Rose's target was the Left's beloved Planned Parenthood, not the military. And that has made all the difference in the nonexistent national coverage of her undercover journalism. Rose edits The Advocate, a pro-life campus publication of the student group Live Action. She posed as a minor impregnated by a 23-year-old boyfriend and caught a Planned Parenthood employee advising her to lie about her age to relieve the abortion provider from a legal obligation to report statutory rape to the police.

"If you're 15, we have to report it," the staffer told Rose in a secretly taped video. "If you're not, if you're older than that, then we don't need to."

"OK, but if I just say I'm not 15, then it's different?" Rose queried.

"You could say 16," the worker helpfully suggested. "Just figure out a birth date that works. And I don't know anything." Other than coverage from a few pro-life groups and conservative websites, Rose's stunning revelations have received virtually no mainstream media attention. And no calls from lawmakers for investigations of Planned Parenthood's predatory tactics and practices—which have been also caught on tape in other states by undercover citizen investigators.

Instead, Rose faces threats of a lawsuit by Planned Parenthood, which sent her a cease-and-desist letter and had the appalling nerve this week to lecture Rose about the need "to be more respectful of California laws," according to the conservative Cybercast News Service.[ Planned Parenthood Threatens to Sue Undercover Activist By Nathan Burchfiel CNSNews.com Staff Writer May 15, 2007]

Where are the muckraking champions when you need them? Intrepid Lila Rose has learned the hard way: Not all undercover journalists are equal.

Michelle Malkin [email her] is author of Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s review. Click here for Michelle Malkin's website. Michelle Malkin's latest book is "Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild."