"STUNG BY STING"

How unethical are the ethics of sting ops? What methods are valid to divulge transgressions? Is deception justifiable when the aim is to tell the truth?
The new era of sting operations bring forth some particularly acute questions.

The unmarked angle to the media now is “sting operations” to expose a social crime.
One can debate endlessly about the ethics of these issues, and not be any closer to resolution, except where motive is clear. But how can a layman judge the credibility of the motive?

Marching into someone’s solitude to expose certain issue is morally wrong because the behavior of the people involved might or might not be natural. They might be motivated to commit a crime or illustrate offense to be projected as a crime.
There exists huge distinction between ‘tempting’ or ‘noosing’ people to accept gifts or backhanders and ‘exposing of corruption’. The misdeed would not have been committed if the covertly journalist had not encouraged the act.
In this way investigative journalism is giving way to ‘Yellow Journalism’.

The disclosure of sting operations carried out by Tehelka on the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat created a stir at a time when the state was headed for assembly elections.
Questioning the timing of the sting and the manner in which it was carried out clearly indicated the mindset to bring about sharp communal divides’ at the time of polls and urge the Election Commission to take steps to check such ‘menacing stab’ to worsen communal split.

These days the media - print, web or television are beneath stern competition. They have to look for what sells ahead of journalist's ethic about presenting the news to public.
But there is a world that does not exist as far as journalists are concerned….

Sting operations are lawful journalistic paraphernalia and means of investigation, but like all other prevailing tools they have to be used vigilantly

The journalist is not a policeman. His intact "supremacy" gushes from the societal good that his profession does. In good journalistic associations, there ought to be ample control methods in place against probable mistreatment of the reporters’ entrée to sources of authority. Above and beyond, there is a basic difference between the quality of print exposés and those by television, due to the differences in the nature of the technology used.

Neither is sting good journalism, nor a secure device for a journalist to lever.

A journalist once said, “News is something someone somewhere doesn’t want to be published – all the rest is advertisement”.