Raising questions about staging news events

When should a news organization fake the news? Easy answer: Never.

But when should one stage something that might offer real insight into an important public issue in the news, like hate crimes? Not such an easy answer.

Going back to 2004, ABC News has been walking that fine line. "What Would You Do?" began as a short segment on "Primetime." The segments proved so popular that they became a series, which will return midseason. Actors were hired. People were duped. Ratings were scored. "Candid Camera" was invoked.

And yet, there has been little outcry from media critics or the media itself.

One reason is history. Part stunt, part social science, part Hollywood, the "Candid Camera" news genre is an old one with tangled roots in print and broadcast.

"The Columbia Journalism Review has called 'What Would You Do?' the 'flip side' of reality shows," David Sloan, the series' executive producer, said in a statement Monday. "Everything about the way people react to our scenarios is real."

CJR, however, also concluded that "the best examples of the genre are undeniably good journalism, and the lesser lights, for the most part, amount to innocuous entertainment."

Under anchor John Quinones, "What Would You Do?" is a bit of both. It's been, for example, a TV crusader against hate crimes, racism and gay-bashing. After Ecuadorean immigrant and father of two Jose Osvaldo Sucuzhañay was beaten to death in Brooklyn a couple of years ago, the show set up several staged situations to gauge public response to hate crimes. But for every hate crime story, there's another on cell phone etiquette or breast-feeding in public.

Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, says a "test" for deciding whether to do this sort of TV "is to ask whether . . . it was done to sensationalize" a subject.

"If people are so upset by how you got the story that they've stopped listening to what you're trying to tell them, then you've defeated your purpose."

Doreen Gilbride knows exactly what he means.