I just answered a reasonable question from a commenter on this post, who asked, “I have some questions about the unethical nature of James O’Keefe’s “journalism.”I would say his methods are ugly, but sometimes ugly things are discovered in ugly ways. Anybody who happily uses the results of his “journalism” enables this type of journalism; condemning this type of journalism sounds hypocritical to me after using his results.”

The comment continued, “Personally I have fewer inhibitions than you on his style; perhaps that is because of a different appreciation of Machiavelli. Sometimes the end does justify the means; it all depends on the end and on the means. Also James O’Keefe (above, before he was fired by his own organization) is not an official journalist, and may therefore not feel bound by any ethics code for journalist he has not signed, and therefore feels free to act as a free agent.”

After I posted my reply, I realized that I had just written a post, and one that was necessary despite the fact that I have written on this topic (and related ones) often here. This is what I wrote, lightly edited:

“Journalism ethics has set out the conditions under which such undercover stings using surreptitious observation, recording and filming through deception can be used, to which the term “last resort” applies. The work of famous 19th Century female journalist Nellie Bly is an example: she had herself committed under an assumed name to a mental institution to report on the horrible conditions there. Otherwise, this tactic is unethical, and obviously un ethical, because it’s lying. Pretty clear cut, no? Lying is unethical. But O’Keefe, as you pointed out, is no journalist. That doesn’t make his unethical tactics any more ethical. Supposedly (we now know otherwise), journalists are supposed to have scruples and standards the public can rely upon. Saying that O’Keefe and his fellow liars are ethical when they lie though journalists are not is like saying that someone who kills a sick person he has decided is a blight on society and doesn’t deserve to live is ethical because he doesn’t have a mediacl license and isn’t bound by “First, do no harm.”

“O’Keefe is an activist, and he’s only interested in “scoops” that advance his particular political objectives. Thus his ambushes are untrustworthy. He won’t reveal stings that undercut his objectives. We don’t know how he cherry-picks the ones he uses, or how many failed stings his organization has tried before a “gotcha!” hist the press.

” There is a reason judicial orders are often needed even for law enforcement to do this kind of thing, and why two-party consent is required in many states for one party to tape another without the other’s knowledge legally. But it’s still unethical even in the states that allow one party recordings. Why? Because it’s a shitty thing to do to anyone, that why! Because it violates reciprocity (like “Do unto others…”). Because it makes society uglier and less secure, safe and private. Because it sets out to embarrass someone.

“Meanwhile, the law has not caught up with technology: the standards for legal secret filming should be much stronger than for mere audiotaping. But again, the practice is still unethical whether it is legal or not. I believe that filming(and even photographing) people in public places is unethical without their informed consent. There are a lot of essays on this in Ethics Alarms.

“Meanwhile, O’Keefe has been caught deceptively editing his stings in the past. He’s simply not trustworthy.

“Regarding the hypocrisy theory: once a fact/event/incident is out in the public square, how it got there is irrelevant. To take a conspiracy theory example, what if Michelle Obama’s secret lover published a photo from their hideaway that proved Michelle is a man? I would absolutely condemn that betrayal. I would argue that it would be unethical for a journalist to publish the photo. But it would also be unethical for the news media to not report new facts when they emerge

“You will note that I began the piece on O’Keefe’s sting with a condemnation of O’Keefe to put the essay in a proper framework. I think I have done this with all of O’Keefe’s work; I haven’t checked: I might have slipped up.

“Finally, O’Keefe’s methods have often been sloppy enough that it’s an open question whether a subject knows what’s going on, and deliberately feeds false information to the slimeball interviewer.

“The tactics are unethical. Arguing that they are justified when they uncover something important is consequentialism, making the argument a rationalization.”

After I wrote that, I did check. O’Keefe has a long Ethics Alarms dossier, which you can peruse here. Some quotes from those posts…

• “I detest O’Keefe, whose methods are unethical and whose bias is manifest. Nonetheless, what he catches he catches: like the Wikileaks leaks showing Donna Brazile cheating for Hillary, we can’t pretend that damning evidence doesn’t exist because it has been obtained and released unethically.”

• “I am deeply conflicted about how to handle the results of James O’Keefe’s “undercover video” operations when they hit gold like this. His methods are dishonest, Project Veritas does not treat his targets fairly, and publicizing his work just ensures that he will do more of it, and that imitators will follow in his slimy footsteps. On the other hand, it makes no sense to apply an ethics blog exclusionary rule, and pretend that the videos don’t show what they show, when what they show is enlightening.”

• “[O’Keefe] is not a journalist. He is an unethical conservative operative who has, though dishonest means, occasionally managed to expose wrongdoing or hypocrisy. He is to an ethics blog what Rice Krispie Squares are to Fine Dining Magazine.”

These are all from different posts; there are many other similar statements in other essays. Here is my post on the results of a left-leaning O’Keefe imitator who used similar tactics to “get” Justice Alito.

The ethics verdict on James O’Keefe and his methods is, I think, irrefutable.