undercover

We just had an interesting editorial meeting discussing the journalistic methods used by The Spokesman Review in Spokane, Washington to to show that Mayor James E West was going to gay chat rooms on city time. Basically, the paper used a computer consultant to go online and entrap the mayor. So the question we pondered was: Was this journalistically ethical? No answers here, although we did basically concur that entrapment or undercover methods should only be used when all other avenues have been exhausted.