clipped from: www.cjrdaily.org In the name of an "exclusive" with the man charged with kidnapping a Missouri boy and suspected of kidnapping another and holding him hostage for more than four years, the New York Post has brought journalists, and questionable ethics, into the limelight.
Apparently identifying herself as a friend of the kidnapping suspect to get into the prison, Post correspondent Susannah Cahalan then told the suspect, Michael Devlin, she was a college student writing for a university publication, securing herself not one, but two 15-minute interviews, according to Michael Kielty, Devlin's lawyer.
But whether or not security was breached does not mitigate the serious questions raised by such reporting. Lew Schucart, a blogger for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, wrote, "Most journalists would agree that any news organization should never use deceit to gain access to information. Doing so harms the reputation not just of that particular reporter or outlet, but all journalists and media."
But besides the Post's questionable ethics, the newspaper's hypocrisy when it comes to journalistic limits are even worse. On Friday, Post columnist Linda Stasi blasted the parents of one of the kidnapping victims, along with Oprah Winfrey, for allowing the boy to be interviewed on national television.
Stasi neglected to place any blame on her own newspaper, which has published more than a dozen stories on the case, each with more lurid details than the next. Stories detail neighbors' accounts of screams coming from Devlin's apartment, describe the pornography authorities found there and chronicle the discovery that one of the kidnapped boys had a girlfriend. Each article broadcasts the victims' names over and over again, without apparent concern for the boys' privacy.