The whole issue of video crusader James O’Keefe, the young “journalist” who took down ACORN with his undercover videos, points to the real potential problems that come with the rise of  “citizen” journalism.

O’Keefe was widely hailed by conservatives as being an inventive and investigative journalist for his undercover videos of ACORN employees basically giving him illegal “legal” advice on certain issues. The videos were widely played on cable networks, then regular networks, and rightly resulted in the investigations of the ACORN organizations.

However, then the youngster and his pals got themselves in legal hot water last week when they were caught in Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in Louisiana, allegedly trying to tap her phones.

O’Keefe claims he was doing another undercover “investigation” about allegations the senator’s staff wasn’t answering phone calls from constituents. In an interview with a Fox opinion program, O’Keefe even went so far as to allege he was “framed” somehow in getting caught.

I can see what O’Keefe is – he’s a crusader who is trying to pass himself off as a journalist. He’s using undercover techniques with video, audio, etc. The problem is, he’s totally not trained to do this kind of work and he doesn’t have the experience to get all his legal ducks in a row before he does this work. And, until he got caught, he really wasn’t accountable for what he’d done.

I know many people complain the “mainstream” media doesn’t do a good job of investigative work anymore. They may be right. But, what many people don’t know is this kind of investigative work is now fraught with legal peril, and the courts often have sided against journalists who use undercover techniques to get stories.

Anyone remember the Food Lion case back in the early 1990s in which a network sent a reporter under cover to work at the grocer and do a story on alleged unsanitary practices at the store? ABC did a very good investigation with their undercover video work, plus interviews with employees.

However, the company responded by suing ABC for fraud claiming the ABC employees misrepresented themselves by lying about who they were. Food Lion initially won the case receiving a multi-million dollar judgment against ABC, but the award was later reduced to a very little sum and the verdict overturned in appeals.

However, the damage was done. Networks stopped doing these kinds of undercover investigations because of threats of lawsuits. Also, media professionals began to explore other ways in which to accomplish their investigative missions. NBC had a very good run with “To Catch a Predator” undercover investigations, but they included law enforcement right in with them. In other words, they covered themselves, legally.

There are all kinds of moral and ethical issues trained media professionals are supposed to follow. Media professionals have to know the law, and they have to perform ethically, at least they do if they work for a professional media company like a network or a newspaper. If they don’t, they will get fired. Undercover operations by mainstream media are going to be few and far between, perhaps unfortunately, because of the legal issues and, frankly, the cost of getting these things done because they take time to be done properly. They can’t be slam-dunk operations.

“Citizen” journalists don’t have this kind of accountability. They can often hide behind anonymous identities. They can use the Internet and their own digital cameras and recorders. But, if they use the techniques like O’Keefe has done, chances are they’re going to get in trouble eventually.

The entrance of the regular citizen into the journalism field is not necessarily unwelcome because there has been some good work done by these people. Most of them are passionate, but also many of them are ideologues who aren’t interested in getting more than one side of the story.

O’Keefe may have done a good thing by opening up peoples’ eyes to what organizations like ACORN are doing and holding those organizations accountable. But, that work likely will be overshadowed by the debacle at the Louisiana U.S. senator’s office and, frankly, makes him and his pals look like buffoons.



Allen is managing editor of the Enid News & Eagle. She can be reached at 548-8163 or by e-mail at editor@enidnews.com.