Tim Tokles never knew what hit him until it was all over. Neither did a half-dozen New York dentists who never would have revealed their dirty habits had they known they were talking to a camera.
Tokles, who had abandoned a wife and two children to poverty-even taking them off his medical insurance, though both children were seriously ill-was one of several targets in ”Deadbeat Dads,” an investigative report engineered by producer Robbie Gordon and executed by Diane Sawyer for ABC-TV`s ”PrimeTime Live.”
The dentists fell prey to Bob McKeown on CBS` ”Street Stories” in an investigation of practices capable of spreading everything from the common cold to tuberculosis and AIDS.
No pity need be wasted on targets of the two shows. Their actions were patently reprehensible and demanded exposure. But the fact remains that none of them knew he was talking to a reporter, much less that the reporter was carrying a hidden recording device.
The increasing use of such undercover devices raises questions, including: Are broadcast news ethics of the past eroding as technology advances, and is there a potential for abuse against people who are not guilty of heinous acts?
People concerned with broadcast ethics are divided on the matter, and the networks themselves walk the line as though it were a tightrope. But all agree on one thing: As cameras become smaller and easier to conceal, their hidden use is bound to increase.
Reuven Frank, veteran documentarian and twice president of NBC News before his retirement, said that because of increasing competition from
”tabloid television shows” and because network managers now consider news departments profit centers, ethics are eroding and hidden cameras potentially are part of the problem.
”Nothing matters anymore, except the competition for audience,” he said. ”Everybody in the spectrum is fighting everybody else for audience, so you`re getting a mushing up of standards. Standards are fine, if they don`t lose audience-that`s become the marching slogan.”
Frank said tabloid shows, in which actors recreate events to hype the drama, constitute part of the pressure on legitimate news organizations to widen audiences, and hence, advertiser appeal, by any means necessary.
”These are not ours-they`re not even our bastard children,” Frank said of the tabloids. ”But the public cannot differentiate. They have all the appurtenances of news presentation, all the cliches. That is how we have conditioned the audience over the years.”
On the other hand, ex-TV journalist Valerie Hyman, who now teaches broadcast ethics at the Pointer Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., said journalism never has been better and the use of hidden cameras is completely ethical, ”as long as the story merits extraordinary methods and there are no other alternatives.
”It`s a terrific way to get stories when no other way is possible,” she said. ”When the more straightforward, more conventional alternatives have been considered and dismissed for legitimate reasons, and when the story itself is of such import that it must be told, deception is warranted. Our job-as journalists-is to inform, not to conceal.”
Citing Nelly Bly, the famed first female New York World investigative reporter who got herself committed to a mental institution in 1888 so she could expose the inhumane practices of the day, Hyman said nothing has changed.
”Deception and impersonation were a part of journalism long before television was even a dream,” she said.
No target is safe
The hidden camera, of course, is nothing new.
Years ago, when Geraldo Rivera was an investigative reporter for ABC News, he smuggled one into a drug den, where discovery might have won him no reward beyond an unmarked grave. CBS` ”60 Minutes” invented so-called ambush journalism, but the target could see Mike Wallace and his camera crew coming a block away, and run-as many did, and still do.
Now, in contrast to the standard network news camera, borne on the shoulder like an anti-tank missile launcher and trailed by dangling battery packs and a soundman, today`s camera can be a high-resolution pin-hole lens in a housing no larger than a pencil, a videotape recorder small enough to be slipped into a purse or pocket, and microphones so tiny that one might be concealed in a tie-tack or an earring.
If indiscriminate use of undercover devices was considered unethical a decade ago, it was largely because today`s devices had not yet been invented. Now, at least potentially, no target, guilty or innocent, is safe.
Tokles, who was arrested and extradited to his wife`s home state to stand trial on third-degree felony counts of desertion and willful non-support after his exposure on ”PrimeTime Live,” learned that the hard way.
Tokles had dodged court-ordered child-support payments by concealing all his considerable assets in his parents` names. He thought the reporters who first interviewed him were customers at his father`s store. He boasted about dodging his ex-wife`s court order and bragged about his wealth. Only when Sawyer walked in, regulation camera blazing, did he flee.
The dentists, who are supposed to heat-sterilize the hand pieces they use in drilling and cleaning teeth after each use, thought they were talking to patients.
They shrugged off sterilization as too costly, because it would require them to buy additional equipment. A simple dip in disinfectant, they assured the reporters, was sufficient-a view not shared by the federal Centers for Disease Control.
Nervous policymaker
Bob McFarland, deputy to NBC News President Michael Gartner, is rewriting his news division`s policy manual, and he admits he`s nervous about hidden-camera use.
”The reasons for using hidden cameras or eavesdropping equipment are complex, and the NBC law department must be consulted before using them,” he said. ”We do not enter into this lightly. We don`t like to do it, and we try not to do it.
”We would much rather have someone consent to an interview or consent to appear on camera. It`s only when they don`t and we`re investigating a story involving criminal conduct that we will indeed resort to use of a hidden camera.”
At CBS News, David Corvo, vice president of public affairs, said hidden- camera use is up marginally at his network, and up considerably in the industry. He denied that the pressures of tabloid TV or the hunger to increase audiences have anything to do with it.
”I think the tabloid-television programs have actually had the opposite affect,” he said. ”They have made us wary of some film techniques because we don`t want to be associated with those programs.”
”The tools don`t cover the news; people cover the news,” Corvo said.
”It`s how they use the tools that counts. Whether it`s a telephone, a pencil or a camera the size of a pencil, all the burden of responsibility is on the newsperson.”
Said ”Deadbeat Dads” producer Gordon: ”We don`t want to do anything worse than the offenses we`re trying to show. We have to be sure we`re exposing a crime or something unethical. We wouldn`t use a hidden camera on a person on the street who has done nothing wrong, nor would we get voters to talk about why they voted for whom, even if we know they wouldn`t be as frank if we brought out a camera.”
But a potential ethical dilemma remains. What happens if the target in a hidden-camera investigation fails to pan out among the guilty, but, not knowing he is under surveillance, admits other infractions-marital infidelity, perhaps, or occasional marijuana use?
What is to keep that footage from emerging as a career-wrecking scandal years later if the individual comes up for high elective or appointive office? ”Absolutely nothing,” said McFarland. ”We usually keep material like that, and if the subject comes up as a presidential candidate, yes, it could be resurrected.” McFarland added that such a scenario would be ”an extraordinarily rare occurrence” and that ”99.9 percent of that sort of material would disappear into nowhere.”
Patchwork of laws
Because state laws governing deceptive camera work and hidden microphones are a bewildering patchwork, the Big Three networks consult with their legal departments before employing such methods.
Joe Thornton, senior counsel/newspapers for Tribune Co., parent company of the Chicago Tribune, said reporters and producers may not know the dangers of using such methods.
In the case of the ”Deadbeat Dads” report, Thornton said the borderline was as thin as the difference between a home and a place of business, where the target of an investigation could not sue for intrusion because he expects people to come in as customers.
”If they tried to pull a stunt like that in his house, that might be a different matter,” he said. ”If they misrepresented themselves in order to gain access to his private home, filming the entire time, he might have a cause of action.”
Thornton said that in the case of a target in a hidden-camera investigation who turns out not to be guilty but admits to other infractions, there would be no legal stricture against resurrecting damaging information, but that the ethical line would be a fine one.
”Perhaps what would be appropriate would be to destroy the outtakes when you find your thesis is not being supported and the story is going some other way and someone tells you something that is not relevant to your story, and not newsworthy independently,” he said. ”You should also remember that with any of such material, you`re running the risk that it might be subpoenaed.
”Even if you get a confession of another crime, the criminal doesn`t have to speak of it publicly,” Thornton said. ”In a courtroom, he can take the 5th Amendment. Whenever there`s a clash between the 5th and the 1st
(Amendments), look out. Most judges favor the defendant`s right to a fair trial.”
Hyman said deceptive tactics are, and will continue to be, abused where newsrooms fail to debate the necessity before using them.
”If truth-telling is one of the values we hold dear as journalists, then we have to think awfully hard before we decide to be deceptive in our pursuit of telling the truth,” she said.
She added, however, that producers like Gordon are paving the way for a new journalistic ethic by employing the best newsgathering tools that technology can provide.
”Today, we can see things that we could not have seen ourselves and heard with our own ears,” she said. ”People are more informed today than they ever have been because there`s more information available. You need not be literate to be informed today. We`re better served than we ever have been.”
Competitive pressures
Reuven Frank was not so sure. He said competitive pressures will continue to drive the TV news business, and the use of any device-from hidden cameras to the hated re-enactments-is likely to increase in the bid for advertising dollars.
”Top management was always willing to sell out,” he said of network TV. ”They used news, not for its own sake, but at best for the sake of prestige. It made them look good at license-renewal time. Now, all you do for a license is send in a postcard (to the FCC). If you haven`t raped anybody on High Street, you`ll get your renewal.”
”I`m one of the luckiest people in the world,” he said. ”I got into it at the right time and I got out of it at the right time. I don`t think I could stand it today.”
