"What lies and hypocrisies could be revealed if the public saw what reporters and their editorial bosses are really like?"

Well, obviously it would depend on which publication was the subject of the investigation. But if it focused on a publication where news is regularly distorted to the point of fiction and where 'journalists' are allowed to misquote, invent quotes and distort case studies then, in the long run, it would do the industry some good.

It would hopefully reveal that in many publications bad practice is becoming standard practice and the industry needs to take a long hard look at itself.

I agree. Newspapers seem exempt from scrutiny. They should not be.

It's accepted wisdom at the major broadcasters that stories about the media are just navel-gazing and the wider public don't share journos@ fascination with the doings of other hacks. Audience figures do seem to bear this out, but there's a degree of vested interest in this. Even the most august TV factual shows need tabloid interest to bring their content to the widest potential market. Would it be in the wider PR interests of Panorama, Dispatches or Tonight with Trevor to piss off the Mail, the Sun or the Mirror with warts-and-all exposes of their staff?

That assumes, of course, that the undercover filmers of journalists behaving badly are employed by these mainstream TV documentaries. Outlets for video material are proliferating online (for example, http://www.youtube.com/) and new market forces are in place that entirely sideline such concerns.

Hmmmm. Leaving aside the audience reach and credibility issues of hoping your self-authored film breaks through to a wider audience via a website, who is going to fund the process? The budget for a properly-researched undercover film is well north of £100k - most of that is spent at the sharp end, gathering video evidence. Undercover filming is technically, personally and morally risky. It's heavilly supervised because broadcasters fear Ofcom's wrath if they screw up on facts and ethics...something newspaper journos don't have to fear from their anaemic Editors' Code. Not sure that those of us who care about journalism would want to entrust such a project to any gung-ho enthusiast trying to earn a living from these miraculous new market forces...

Anyone could potentially take a secret video of journalists at work. The technology is available and it is cheap. Distribution on the web is actually a very easy matter - if it was sufficiently controversial it could spread virally like the infamous footage of an Apache helicopter "taking out" insurgents - http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story795.shtml. Greater exposure than any terrestrial TV-based documentary can hope to achieve, at no cost.

As for remuneration, well there are plenty of people around who are sufficiently motivated to take a pot shot at the press without payment.

I am not advocating such an approach, merely pointing it out as a possibility. However much we, as journalists, might question the credibility of such footage, joe public will generally take it as read. And it would be no surprise to see it subsequently broadcast on TV either...

Point taken, but are you sure that US Army footage first shown on ABC News is quite the best example of the brave new world of citizen journalism?

The basic fact is that no-one has got the bottle to go and film undercover, say, at The Sun or The Mirror. Certain sections of the media are prepared to criticise the actions of the tabloid press from the comfort of their offices but not prepared to put their necks on the line to find evidence to back up what they say. Les, for instance, you sound like you may have had some Fleet Street experience. Why not get some work on one of the national tabloids and film them covertly? They're always looking for casuals or you could get diary work etc etc using a fake name and identity. Even if said footage was broadcast I don't imagine any backlash would affect you unduly (or your freelance earnings) as the tabloids don't sound like they are really your market. Then you'd really have something to write about.

I think you are right that you need a lot of bottle to upset the tabs. And also, perhaps, deep pockets for legal bills. Remember that only this month News International's lawyers got an injunction & tried to prevent pictures circulating of its NoW undercover reporter.

Les

An example of the brave new world of citizen journalism? Of course not. It's got nothing to do with journalism. Which is my point. Techology means that journalists no longer have the monopoly on delivery of media.

Incidentally, my preferred term is citizen media. It's not all journalism (some argue that none of it is) and the idea that journalists are somehow distinct from citizens is ridiculous.

But Jimmy's right, it's going to take a journalist to go undercover at a tabloid. And, as Les says, deep pockets to fight the subsequent legal actions.