Dallas Morning News column comments on AIM investigation
March 28, 2025
Here’s why journalists don’t use hidden cameras
Last week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Coppell ISD for, essentially, being “woke.” As a parent of students who completed every level of instruction in that district, I’ve found Coppell to be about as conservative, in a homey, prosaic way, as any other affluent suburb. But as a journalist, I feel the need to address the deception that formed the basis of Paxton’s lawsuit.
The attorney general took action in response to a hidden-camera report from an activist group called Accuracy In Media. This isn’t the first time AIM has given Paxton marching orders. Paxton launched probes at Dallas ISD and Irving ISD after AIM released hidden-camera reports about those districts’ practices regarding transgender students. AIM has also taken its hidden cameras after Richardson ISD, San Antonio ISD, Hutto ISD and Calallen ISD. It has made allegations about hot-button issues at Tarleton State University, the University of North Texas, UNT Dallas and Texas Tech.
I have no interest in defending school administrators who may be offering tepid compliance with state law. Some of the people in these videos seem to be announcing their intent to disregard government mandates. That deserves to be exposed. But I do have an interest in defending journalistic standards.
There was a time when the American journalism community accepted lying, bending the truth or otherwise misrepresenting themselves as part of the work required to get at the story. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, journalists commonly adopted disguises to get scoops. Nellie Bly famously feigned mental illness to report on conditions inside Blackwell’s Insane Asylum for Women for the New York World. Other journalists pretended to be pregnant, prostitutes, shop workers and other things. Many of these intrepid reporters were women, and their work exposed injustices and led to reform.