The Society of Professional Journalists issued the following release condemning the Buffalo Beast’s fake call to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, in which the BB’s editor attempted, spectacularly unsuccessfully, to trick the Governor into making inflammatory or embarrassing statements. All he managed to do was to prove that Walker had never spoken to David Koch in his life, effectively debunking conspiracy theories that the Koch brothers were calling the shots in the Wisconsin public unions showdown. It was still a low point in recent journalism—quite an achievement, really—as the SPJ made clear:
SPJ: Remember Ethics
in Wake of Fake Phone Call with Wisconsin Governor
INDIANAPOLIS – The Society of Professional Journalists, through its Ethics Committee, strongly condemns the actions of an alternative online outlet this week when an editor lied and posed as a financial backer in a recorded phone call with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.
Ian Murphy, editor of the Buffalo Beast, represented himself as billionaire businessman and conservative activist David Koch, a financial supporter of Gov. Scott Walker, so that he could gain access to the governor by phone. He spoke with the governor under these false pretenses.
During the phone call, Murphy, as Koch, baited the governor with questions about liberals in the media and the Democrats who have vacated the statehouse to prevent a vote on a collective bargaining bill. Near the end of the call, Murphy tells the governor that once Walker crushes the unions and their Democratic base, he (as the pretend Koch) will fly Walker to California and “really show you a good time.”
Walker responded: “All right. That would be outstanding.”
“This tactic and the deception used to gain this information violate the highest levels of journalism ethics,” said SPJ Ethics Committee Chairman Kevin Z. Smith. “To lie to a source about your identity and then to bait that source into making comments that are inflammatory is inexcusable and has no place in journalism.”
The Society’s Code of Ethics states that journalists should “be honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting news” and to avoid “undercover or other surreptitious methods of gathering information except when traditional open methods will not yield information vital to the public.”
SPJ President Hagit Limor condemned the incident, saying“This may be how Hollywood portrays reporters, but no journalist worth his salt ever would misrepresent his name and affiliation when seeking an interview. Murphy should be ashamed not only of his actions but of besmirching our profession by acting so shamelessly.”
Excellent! Inspiring! Meanwhile, about 12,000 print and internet news sources, and all the major broadcast news outlets, ran detailed and prominent stories on the fake call, in some cases three or four.
You see, in the world of American journalism, once a scummy reporter gets a story, no matter how illicitly, no editor, publisher or producer will take an ethical stand if it means passing up a scoop.
But isn’t it reassuring that their association condemns it?
Ethics Alarms 
How is this different from the folks that spoofed ACORN and Planned parenthood?
1) They weren’t journalists.
2) Arguably the “sting” met the “undercover” standards of the SPJ Code anyway. The ACORN sting was seeking evidence of criminal activity.
3) The BB was just fishing.
Give me a damned break.
1. They were operatives of Andrew Breitbart’s websites, which makes them as much (and as little) journalists as someone who works for something called the Buffalo Beast. Indeed, they were touted as journalists all over Fox News, the right-wing blogosphere, and GOP rhetoric at least until their fundamental dishonesty became known.
2. The “sting” per se may have met those standards, but the editing certainly didn’t. A comparison of the edited and unedited tapes shows a more vicious attack on innocent people than happened to Shirley Sherrod. (Breitbart, again.)
3. The two cases are strikingly parallel: people working for an ideological website (making them “journalists” or not, depending largely on the convenience of the description to the argument of the observer) pretend to be someone they’re not. In this persona, they gain access to someone they believe (or purport to believe) to be doing something wrong and/or illegal for the purpose of exposing that presumed corruption. In both cases, they appear–at least initially–to do so. In both cases, there is furor, generated mostly by the political allies of the quasi-journalists, or, perhaps more accurately, by the political opponents of the victims. The only difference is that there is no evidence (yet?) that Murphy actually manipulated the tapes themselves. Oh, and that what O’Keefe and Giles did cost people (including innocent people) their jobs; what Murphy did hasn’t done so (yet?).
Down!
Do me a favor: look up ACORN and read the posts and comments. I’m not up for rehashing it. I’ve said that O’keefe is a slime. As evidence, the tape was trash, and unethical. I have no admiration of Brietbart. But O’Keefe is no journalist (give ME a break) and he’s certainly not governmed by the SPJ’s code. This isn’t an area in which broad equivilencies can be used…they are either bound by professional ethics or they aren’t. The aren’t. Bob asked for differences. I didn’t say O’Keefe was ethical.
But don’t insult our intelligence by defending ACORN. I consult for non-profits: this is a non-profit that hid the fact that its treasurer embezzled a million bucks—from it’s BOARD! Got that? It was run like a lemonade stand, and deserved to go. Having employees that told people they thought were prostitutes how to defraud the government was a symptom. I don’t care how much good work an organization does—it it accepts government funding and private donations, it has an obligation to be professional, and ACORN just wasn’t…that’s all there is to it, it’s a matter of record, and the fact that a bunch of low-life conservative ttricksters brought them down doesn’t cahange that.
And what illegal activity is Walker supposedly engaged in? Being anti-public unions and conservative isn’t illegal, last time I looked.
No, O’Keefe wasn’t a journalist, but he represented himself as one at the time. I’d say the same for Murphy.
And where am I “defending ACORN”? The tag line on my blog post from last April was “ACORN? Good riddance.” Notice that I said above that “people (including innocent people) lost their jobs.” The clear implication is that I think there were some NOT innocent people, too. But if you’re not willing to grant that there were some good people just trying to do their jobs, completely ethically, who worked at ACORN because they believed in the organization’s stated goals, then this conversation is over.
Nor did I say what Walker is doing is illegal: I said his actions could be perceived by a political opponent as “something wrong and/or illegal.” But if you want to limit the scope to legality: Walker is (now) being accused by some (e.g., a former Wisconsin Attorney General) with potential violations of state labor laws. These alleged infractions seem, to some, to find support in the tape: I have neither enough facts nor, probably, enough legal training to have an opinion on the legitimacy of the claim. It strikes me that someone pranking the governor might well have been able to claim that he was looking for evidence of precisely those alleged violations. Was he? Probably not. But O’Keefe wasn’t looking for real evidence of criminality, either. His mission was to create the impression of illegal activity whether it existed or not.
I continue to see the cases as remarkably parallel. N.B. This is not a defense of Murphy.
I don’t see any parallel at all, not that I think it’s even slightly germane. So what? O’Keefe doesn’t make the BB hoax more or less ethical.He’s not subject to the SPJ’s Code…the editor of the Buffalo Beast is. Brietbart isn’t even a journalist…he’s an admitted political activist. That doesn’t mean he’s ethical—it just means that he’s not an unethical journalist.
Frankly, I don’t know what O’Keefe was after. I do know that a well-trained competent staff would have greatly reduced his chance of finding anything.What are you so cranky about, anyway? Of course there were good people in ACORN—it was betrayed by incompetent leadership.It’s destruction was preordained—if it hadn’t been the pimp scam, it would have been something else.
I would say between the fake editing and the stunt itself, O’Keefe was ethically more out of line than Murphy—so what’s your point? That there are slimey conservatives too? Was that ever in question?
Walker was very careful on the phone call..anyone who thinks he broke any laws is nuts.
Let’s see…one is a governor, tricked by a journalist over the phone who is 1) misrepresenting himself as prominent individual ( and 100% legal)who is a wealthy funder of political causes, and misrepresenting himself as such to an elected official, while secretly (.legally but unethically) taping the conversation.
The other is an already ethically compromised non-profit, presented in person with an individual, a non-journalist, falsely representing himself as a criminal, asking advice about a fraud and criminal enterprise, to a low level employee aiming to embarrass, not the employee, but the organization that employs her.
You’re right…they’re like two peas in a pod.