‘The 10 O’Clock News’ is a narc

One of the questions journalists sometimes face is what to do when we see something illegal happen. If you’re working on a story where, say, one of your main interviewees sells drugs, there’s a possibility of hearing talk of drug sales, seeing drugs being sold, &c. The general rule is that a journalist is an observer, not a participant, and you don’t turn over your findings to the police.

Last night on Fox 29’s 10 O’Clock News, there was a special report on nitrous. Nitrous is, of course, nitrous oxide, laughing gas, Hippie crack, &c. It’s used in street racing, in dentist’s office and for recreational use.

Fox 29 found three adult book stores in Philadelphia — Danny’s, John’s and Sansom Cinema — selling nitrous, which is illegal to sell for the purpose of inhaling it for pleasure. (There was also a place in Jersey selling some.)

Fox did the whole hidden camera shtick, catching people in the act, and confronted them — including one guy on camera at John’s who claims to simply just be making change. Okay, okay, you did your report, stores are illegally selling nitrous, fine.

But then they turned the tapes over to the police. Wait, it gets better! They accompanied the police on at least one raid! There’s always some murky legal waters on ridealongs, but Fox 29’s involvement isn’t like a ridealong — they’re a (not so) confidential informant chillin’ with the police during a raid. Geeze, even Cops doesn’t let the camera operator participate.

Fox 29 reporter John Atwater confronts a store manager with the line “Kids die from this,” which could also be said of pretty much anything, but hints what this report is actually getting at.

Doing investigations and hidden camera work and ambush journalism is fine, but turning over all your tapes to police and then filming the raid? The report is long, so I excerpted it below. I basically cut out some of the hidden camera stuff and clips of law enforcement officials telling us nitrous is dangerous and illegal.

In the meantime, somebody get John Atwater a “Stop Snitchin’” t-shirt. Oh, and if you’re doing lines, don’t invite him over to your house.

Nitrous oxide [Wikipedia]