Gotcha journalism.

• Author: Brown, Peter A.
• Position: Journalists' efforts to expose politicians

Reporters covering NCSL's 1993 Annual Meeting in San Diego proved more interested in "getting" the attendees than covering the proceedings. This writer says the public is tired of so-called "gotcha journalism," which is unethical and damaging to representative government.

When Dee Long, then majority leader of the Minnesota House of Representatives, attended the 1991 summer meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), one reporter followed her so closely he figured out how much she paid for meals by checking her plate against the menu.

When House Speaker Long attended NCSL's 1993 meeting, held last summer in San Diego, another reporter from her hometown lied about where he was from in order to get press credentials; he didn't want her to know he was there. The reporter, from television station KTSP of St. Paul, Minn., covertly videotaped her movements until she discovered him. After that, he kept a camera in her face the rest of the week.

When she returned home, KTSP ran a Story as part of a series on government waste that showed Long enjoying a game of golf at the conference. The next day the legislator, citing "personal reasons," resigned her speakership. While other factors influenced her decision, Long says her treatment by the news media was nothing less than "the final straw." Long's experience with her home-state news media is hardly the exception.

In San Diego to cover the NCSL conference for Scripps-Howard news service, I found a story I had not expected: the lamentable spread of what President Clinton and others have called the "gotcha" mentality of those journalists who cover politics. As I found in San Diego, this approach produced some mindless, not to mention unethical, journalism, especially at the local and state level.

Far removed from the traditions of bona fide investigative reporting, so-called gotcha journalism may be defined as the effort to catch public officials in seemingly compromising positions. Journalists who practice it focus on catching faux pas instead of reporting on what a person actually does in carrying out his or her official job. Gotcha journalism can be lethal to state and local lawmakers, as the Long case shows. Often underpaid and overworked, they can hardly be blamed for wondering why they chose to enter public service, or for saying in effect, "Take this job and shove it."

KTSP, an ABC affiliate, sent John Blake, an off-air producer, to San Diego with a palmcorder that made him look like just another tourist taking home videos. Asked at the time why he was sent, rather than an on-air reporter who covered state politics, Blake said: "Obvious reasons. We are undercover. [The lawmakers] would recognize the people who cover them." just to be sure they wouldn't recognize him, Blake used the business card of a St. Paul Pioneer Press photographer to register for press credentials. He later reregistered as a reporter from a sister station in New Mexico. As though these deceptions were not enough, Blake actually lied to a South Dakota lawmaker who asked him where he was from. Blake was disciplined for his methods by the television station, but that didn't stop KTSP from running his video.

The story showed Dee Long playing golf on Sunday, July 25, the day of the conference with by far the lightest meeting schedule. It said that Long participated in work sessions only two of the four other days of the conference. The report also focused on a second Minnesota lawmaker who brought his family with him at his own expense, although his wife and children stayed in his hotel room. Additionally, the segment captured on video a third lawmaker who wandered off from the convention to catch an afternoon showing at a pornography theater.

The point of the story was obvious: Lawmakers played when they should have worked - and did so at taxpayer expense. But the report had numerous flaws. Although Long paid her expenses on the days she did not attend working sessions, it was implied she would not have done so had the KTSP reporter not followed her around. In a subsequent interview, Long maintained the opposite. The segment also failed to report that Long actually saved the state of Minnesota some money. She flew to San Diego the Saturday before the conference in order to take advantage of the price break airlines give...