DANGEROUS JOURNALISM: The James O’Keefe Story

Last week a couple of guys dressed as telephone repairmen entered Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu’s office in a New Orleans Federal building (below, left). Here is what we know for sure: They had to have entered the building under false pretenses. They videotaped their experience in Landrieu’s office using a cell phone and a camera hidden in one of the men’s helmets. Landrieu’s staff was suspicious and contacted security, who called the police. Four men were arrested, including one James O’Keefe. O’Keefe, some readers will recall, is the young man who disguised himself as a pimp in 2008, and accompanied by a woman disguised as a prostitute (header photo), entered several ACORN offices inquiring about how to start an illegal business of smuggling underage girls from El Salvador, with the intent of using them in a sex-related business. Those encounters were also videotaped, resulting in funding and support being cut off nationwide for ACORN.

James O’Keefe spent the night in jail, or 28 hours to be exact, and allegedly was denied the right to contact an attorney. This has not been substantiated yet. Federal prosecutors report that each alleged perpetrator now faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines for "entering federal property under false pretenses for the purpose of committing a felony.” During the 28 hours O’Keefe was incarcerated, mainstream media reported the incident and some outlets suggested O’Keefe was in Landrieu’s office to bug her phones. The reported reason for this was that Landrieu had secured a $300 million payout for the state of Louisiana, after agreeing to vote in favor of moving the healthcare issue into the debate stage, back in November, 2009. Landrieu was the subject of slings and arrows from all quarters of the U.S. Some said simply that her vote was bought and paid for. Others went so far as to call her a prostitute or to say she whored herself and her state and sold her vote once the bid got high enough. For the record, here’s what Landrieu had to say about her decision to vote yes for the healthcare debate:

O’Keefe now says his aim was to uncover the truth as to why Landrieu’s office was not accepting phone inquiries about her vote. Apparently, some constituents and others were having trouble for up to three weeks getting their calls into Landrieu’s office. How O’Keefe & Co. were going to expose the truth is not known.

Here is what O’Keefe had to say to Sean Hannity on FOX News following his release:

Now, you may draw your own conclusions about what Landrieu did or did not do, the legitimacy of her decision and the effect the incident may have on future efforts to secure Senate votes. That’s not what I’m here for. I’m here to explore O'Keefe’s dangerous “journalistic” tactics.

Notice in his interview with O’Keefe in one passing comment he refers to “New Age Journalism.” Prior to using that term he alludes to mainstream media investigative journalism techniques that employ the use of deception to get their story. He refers to the Food Lion incident in 1997, when ABC used hidden cameras to prove that the grocery chain was using unsanitary food handling procedures, including bleaching outdated pork with Clorox, repackaging it and selling it. He also referred to NBC’s “Dateline” as a prime example of the use of deception in journalism.

My ears perked up when I heard this, because I teach media ethics, and one of the main topics we cover is the use of deception in gathering information for a story. Author/ethicist Louis Alvin Day, in his book “Ethics in Media Communications” cites four criteria for the use of deception in journalism, which I happen to support. Day contends deception might be used in reporting:
1. If the reporter is convinced the information is of compelling public importance.
What did O’Keefe see as a matter of compelling public importance – that Landrieu finagled $300 million for Louisiana, or that her staff was allegedly not taking calls? If it was the former, Landrieu has been totally forthcoming about the amount and her reasons for doing it. You may not agree with her reasons, but she said it out loud in the Senate and on national television.
2. If the reporter has considered all alternatives to the use of deception.
What did O’Keefe and his cronies do before they entered a Federal building under false pretenses? Did they try to meet with Landrieu? Did they contact her chief of staff? Did they research what she said about the $300 million to determine if there was truly any cause for alarm or action? Did they enter Landrieu’s office in street clothes and ask to meet with someone about the fact that they were unable to reach the staff by phone? So far, O’Keefe has not revealed anything legitimate that he did to gather information.
3. If the reporter is convinced the benefit outweighs the harm to the parties involved.
Regardless of what type of information O’Keefe may have secured in this caper, the fact is he entered a Federal building and a government office under false pretenses, impersonating a utility technician. What does this say to us, the citizens about the security of our Federal buildings? Does anyone remember the Murrah Federal building bombing, Oklahoma City in 1995, (above, left) or is that just a footnote in the history books now? If O’Keefe wanted to truly gather information of compelling public importance, perhaps he could have used his extreme escapade to uncover security flaws in these buildings. But that was not his intention. Did the benefit outweigh the harm here? The evidence revealed so far would say not.
4. If the reporter discloses to the audience the nature of the deception and the reason it was used.
As of now, we have no way of knowing if O’Keefe was going to disclose what he did, and if the public would be better off for his actions.

What worries me more than anything is his reference to “New Age Journalism.” If O’Keefe sees the transitions traditional journalism has made in the past decade or so as carte blanche to employ any techniques necessary to gather information, he is severely misinterpreting the discipline of journalism. I did a little digging into his background. He earned a philosophy degree from Rutgers University, and while there he started a conservative newspaper called The Centurion, which still exists today. The first issue reveals the publication’s socio-political stance, albeit with some questionable writing and reporting. The early editions of The Centurion smack of the old Andy Rooney/Judy Garland movies where the iconic phrase became, “Hey kids, let’s put on a show.” O’Keefe, it appears from this vantage point, needs some good journalistic training, and certainly some mentoring in investigative journalism. His founding of the Centurion was certainly in the Rooney/Garland genre. If he is going to try to uncover truths he feels the public needs to know, he first must learn how to do it without breaking the law and certainly without getting arrested. Apparently, he has not considered that.

Further, at the ripe old age of 26, O’Keefe has become something of a college conservative media god to his successors. Here is what Rutgers student and Centurion writer Stephanie Jablonsky wrote in the December, 2009 edition of The Centurion:

“On Wednesday, October 28, the steps of Brower Common were graced by the presence of the most notorious conservative activist in the nation, legendary Centurion founder and Rutgers grad, ACORN infiltrator…James O’Freaking Keefe. When he arrived as the College Republicans’ main guest speaker for their campus Tea Party, babies cried, acorns cracked, and the stench of Rutgers’ progressive self-righteousness and hypocrisy was removed from the air –at least for a little while. James O’Keefe was home.”

You may view that over-the-top passage as simply that of a star-struck college co-ed, but that’s exactly the point. If O’Keefe is going to position himself as a new age version of the late William F. Buckley,(left, with President Ronald Reagan) perhaps he needs to get himself back in school, study public policy and journalism, and then try to change the world. You have to give him props for his chutzpah, but real activism comes from a place of strength, and that strength lies in knowledge and experience. The experience at 26 usually and necessarily has to be somebody else’s, but even that can light the way. O’Keefe’s bumbling turn as a pimp and his recent arrest are clear indications that he should not be positioning himself as a role model for young conservatives. Oh, and if you need further convincing that O’Keefe is the anti-journalist, watch this video of one of his lesser-known stunts in which heterosexual O’Keefe and his heterosexual friend trying to take out a marriage license in Massachusetts:

I realize how condescending this sounds, even before I write it, but I’m writing it anyway: O’Keefe is a very young guy. He’s trying to find his footing in the world. Like any other young guy, he will stumble along the way, but he has chosen to do it publicly. My sense of it is that the theatrics he uses today will someday make him cringe, especially the pimp suit. Apparently Magistrate Judge Louis Moore agrees with me on the youth angle. After O’Keefe’s unlawful entry in to the New Orleans Federal building, Judge Moore ordered O’Keefe to reside in the state of New Jersey until the next hearing – with his parents.

NEW ORLEANS: The Fastest Growing Forgotten City in the U.S.

Seven weeks after Hurricane Katrina, upon returning from exile, a friend of mine took me to see the edge of Lake Pontchartrain. It is where old, established New Orleans seafood restaurants were located. “Let’s go to the lakefront and eat some crawfish,” was part of the easy local lexicon. A long line of old clapboard buildings lined the lakefront, along with a couple that had been built more recently – meaning sometime in the last 40 years or so. You could get lucky and grab a table outside and spend the evening talking and drinking and eating Louisiana seafood. You could watch the sun set on the lake, or watercraft buzzing by. Sometimes people would drive their boats right up to the restaurant, disembark and have dinner. It was a lovely part of the city.

When my friend took me to see it after the storm (below, right), there was no trace whatsoever of anything that had been there. Not an intact board or rooftop, not one recognizeable thing. I lost my bearings for a few moments, actually not being able to figure out exactly where I was. It was a barren space that just looked out over the water. All traces of the ‘forget your troubles’ kind of a place this used to be were eradicated. Of all the post-Katrina moments I have had, that may have been one of the most devastating. Standing there taking it in I was struck by the fully unwelcome silence of the place. Standing in the exact spot where the old restaurants had been, my friend and I looked at each other and quietly we knew this was one of those ‘you had to be there moments.’ Nobody who isn’t here is going to understand how this feels.

Fast forward almost four years later: It Is July 1, 2009 and the U.S. Census bureau reports New Orleans is the fastest growing city in the United States. Last year alone, the population in New Orleans grew by 8.2 percent. We have about 311, 000 people now. That is, however, down from approximately 484,000 in the 2000 census. Still, I can report that New Orleans feels more like itself, finally. The population no longer feels sparse, as it did for the first couple of years after the storm.

The city looks better, but if you get out into some of the outlying areas, such as New Orleans East and the Lower 9th Ward, things are still rough. In some places, not a lot of progress has been made. The much ballyhooed “Musician’s Village,” (left) a housing development for local musicians, spearheaded by Harry Connick, Jr., is a sight to behold. Amazing. But spitting distance from there, for years after Katrina, was the graveyard for all the New Orleans Police Department vehicles killed by the floods. You can see some new housing developments in New Orleans East, but the Lake Forest Plaza Shopping Mall, once a commercial hub, was virtually destroyed by the hurricane and the subsequent flooding. It sits as a giant reminder of nature’s wrath.

In the Lower 9th, Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation is doing a phenomenal job in raising money and building highly innovative, storm-resistant homes. But a stone’s throw from the development you can drive down streets in the Lower 9th that look like Katrina hit yesterday. The grass may be higher, but the devastation remains visible. If you have been here before, the devastation tells a sad story. Part of a house remains that was built a century ago, and across the street are the remains of the home of the first house’s descendents. Just down the street might be a pile of rubble that once housed the grandchildren. This was a community that had rich family heritage. There was no great wealth here; no one boasts of a U.S. President hailing from the lower 9th, but there is important cultural history here, just the same. So why, four years later, is it all still crumbling foundations, waist high weeds and nothing but memories?

Recent reports indicate there are approximately 3,800 vacant properties in the lower 9th. If you are not in New Orleans, what you do not know is that you can walk right up to some of the smashed houses, look in the windows and still see dishes in the sink from August 29, 2005, or clothes hanging neatly in closets – the door may be torn off but the garments are still there, waiting. The homeowners are still spread far and wide from Texas to Maine, Virginia to California. Those who are back often live on blocks where theirs is the only inhabited house. It is not uncommon to see residents whose houses show signs of repairs that were started, but then stopped. Often that has much to do with contractors who took their money and ran, without completing the job. An over-taxed, under-financed District Attorney’s office in Orleans Parish has countless such cases waiting to be settled.

Elsewhere in the city, the Army Corps of Engineers came forward recently to admit that it is running behind on 13 levee repair projects. Some of these projects were not due to be completed until 2011, but now may take even a couple of years longer. That is, unless we have a Katrina-like storm that decimates even more of the existing levee system. The government allocated $15 billion to repair the levees, but that figure was tied to a repair schedule the Corps can no longer meet. If the levee repairs cost more than originally anticipated, no one knows from where the additional funding will come.

Meanwhile, earlier this year, Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) reported that much of the money allocated for repairs throughout the Gulf Coast region was tied up in red tape. FEMA promised $5.8 billion to repair roads, schools, libraries, sewer systems and other infrastructure, but a good portion of the rebuilding has yet to begin. Meanwhile, the facilities that should have been repaired by now continue to rot. How long do government officials think an old school building or library with all of the windows blown out (above, left) can sit idle before it is not longer repairable? Or, perhaps that is the wrong question. Maybe the real question is, Do government officials think about the Gulf Coast and/or New Orleans anymore? Or are we yesterday’s news?

The answer depends on your location. If you are anywhere outside of the Gulf Coast, Hurricane Katrina is history. However, those of us who live in New Orleans, or the surrounding areas, see Katrina in present tense. A Katrina-like catastrophe could happen in Anytown, USA. Maybe even your town. And once it does, be aware that you will ultimately be out there on your own – even if you live in the “fastest growing city in the United States.”