A Texas grand jury investigating Planned Parenthood shifted its focus to two anti-abortion activists indicting them for tampering with a government record. The activists of the Center for Medical Progress posed as biotech representatives and presented fake California driver’s licenses to gain access to a April meeting at Planned Parenthood in Houston. One of the indicted and director of the center, David R. Daleiden, claimed he was using the undercover methods of investigative journalists. Daleiden alleges that Planned Parenthood is conducting illegal transactions concerning fetal tissue. (The New York Times, January 25, 2016, by Manny Fernandez)
Dahlia Lithwick of Slate, February 2, 2016, reported that even some abortion supporters are arguing that the indictment could hurt the practice of undercover journalism across the country. The core question is whether the activists were engaged in journalism. After Daleiden shot hours of footage showing no criminal conduct, he allegedly distorted videos to manufacture some, disqualifying himself as a journalist seeking the truth.
Joyce Terhaar in The Sacramento Bee, January 20, 2016, lists six requirements before reporting undercover. Bob Steele, a prominent voice of journalist ethics, “…wrote that it might be appropriate to use deception/misrepresentation/hidden cameras if all of the following were true: the information is of profound importance; all other alternatives for obtaining it have been exhausted; the nature of and reason for the deception will be disclosed; those involved apply excellence to the full pursuit of the story; the harm prevented outweighs any harm caused; and the journalists involved have thoroughly vetted the ethical and legal issues.”
A federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Daleiden could not make public the recordings from meetings of the National Abortion Federation in San Francisco and Baltimore where he posed a representative of a fetal research company. Daleiden claimed he was acting as an investigative journalist and should be able to release the recordings in the public interest. (San Francisco Chronicle, January 31, 2016, by Bob Egelko)