A chill settles over investigative journalism.

• Author: Saltzman, Joe

Nellie Bly and Annie Laurie did it. So did Walter Cronkite, Gloria Steinem, Carol Lynn Mithers, the Miami Herald, the Chicago Sun-Times, and "60 Minutes." In fact, some of the best investigative reporters in the history of journalism did it for the best of reasons -- to inform the public about wrongdoing by business and government, to expose corruption that pollutes our way of life. And journalists who used deception to get the goods on the bad guys were treated like heroes.

Nellie Bly posed as an insane woman so she could expose New York City's notorious Women's Lunatic Asylum, and Annie Laurie disguised herself as an indigent patient to expose improper conduct by the staff of San Francisco's city hospital. They exposed so many corrupt practices in the two cities across a continent that the technique was given its own name: stunt journalism. Bly and Laurie's stories became classics of investigative reporting. Nobody seemed to care that even their bylines were pseudonyms.

Gloria Steinem became a Playboy Bunny to give readers an inside look at what the women employees of the Playboy Clubs had to go through to please the boss as well as the customers. Carol Lynn Mithers posed as a man to get a job on a sports magazine and published the results in a Village Voice article called "My Life as a Man." Walter Cronkite voted under false names twice in the same election to expose election fraud. Miami Herald reporters went undercover to expose housing discrimination. CBS's "60 Minutes" set up a bar called the Mirage, manned it with undercover journalists, and watched as various city officials demanded bribes for their services. The Chicago Sun-Times sent female journalists into clinics in downtown Chicago that performed costly abortions on women who were not pregnant. And in 1992, ABC News' "Prime Time Live" used undercover reporters and hidden cameras to document charges that some Food Lion stores sold tainted meat and spoiled fish.

The investigative reporters of the past, who used deception to expose corruption, knew that, if they told the truth, there was nothing the people being exposed could do to them. As long as their motives were pure (no malice) and their stories accurate, they were on safe ground.

But a recent North Carolina jury decision imposed a $5,000,000 fine against ABC News because network employees had used false job applications to get hired by Food Lion, thereby committing fraud, trespassing, and breach of loyalty. The clever...