There is a saying that goes... the end justifies the means.
It basically implies that no matter how dishonest or deceitful chasing the truth becomes, if in the end the truth is had then at the end of the day it is fine, because that is after all what was being sought in the first place!
However, I wonder should this apply to journalism as well?
For more than 150 years, American journalists have been playing make-believe to get themselves thrown into jails and loony bins; conniving their way into punishing factory jobs; and posing as high school students, Ku Klux Klan members, and even pregnant women in search of abortionists.
Journalists have even fashioned Mission: Impossible scenarios to snare wrongdoers, as the Chicago Sun-Times did in 1978, when it acquired a downtown bar, named it The Mirage, and staffed it with reporters.
The paper documented, in a 25-part series, payoffs to city health inspectors, shakedowns by state alcohol inspectors, tax fraud, kickbacks, and other crimes.
The series was regarded as 'a sensation and an abomination' although a Pulitzer Prize jury tapped it for an award in the Local Investigative Specialised Reporting category, the Pulitzer board overturned the jury's selection because it disapproved of the Sun-Times' methods.
If you have ever reported a story, you automatically understand the appeal of telling lies to get to the truth - they can be a wonderful shortcut!
Because let us face it conventional reporting requires time, sources, and energy and must produce genuine findings in order to get published.
Undercover journalism has been the subject of heated discussions, especially since the late 1970s, and whenever an undercover sting causes a stir.
Journalists are reluctant to call a lie a lie, as they fear this will make them look biased.
They feel more comfortable with "he-said, "she said" coverage that simply describes what has been said without comment, leaving it to the public to decide who is right.
According to journalists, deception is ideally a last resort, when all other means have been exhausted.
Bahrain last week, once again witnessed how some of this deceit can occur.
Minister of State for Information Affairs Sameera Rajab said several news organisations would be dealt with 'seriously' for distorting the truth about the country.
"We will deal with media establishments that have clear intentions of harming Bahrain's image and damaging its economy soon," she said at a recent Press conference.
During the weekend's incident during the hosting of the F1, three Western journalists from ITV News were deported after they were caught violating rules and working without authorisation.
Unfortunately, as we have come to know or realise recently, some reporting, and sadly in reputed companies, is not what it used to be.
Take for example the recent BBC episode, of its reporters who posed as students to gain access to Communist North Korea.
They not only risked their own lives, but that of the students they were travelling with.
The television crew for the Panorama programme used a London School of Economics (LSE) student society as a front to film inside the totalitarian state.
Time and again, it has been said that journalists have, in the process of seeking the truth, moved away from it.
When they try to legitimise the way in which they bring out 'fair, unbiased and balanced reporting', they are only failing themselves, their readers and viewers.