"PrimeTime" Revives The Hidden Camera   

In the beginning there was Diane and Sam and a live audience – and it was not good. So ABC's "PrimeTime Live" set about recreating itself. It kept Diane Sawyer in New York, moved Sam Donaldson to Washington, D.C., and lost the audience. And then it broke out the hidden cameras, secretly videotaping everything from members of Congress partying it up on special interest junkets to landlords illegally turning away black apartment hunters.

The hidden camera segments became the show's signature – and also have helped resurrect debate about the ethics of journalists using concealed cameras to deceive the targets of investigations.

The use of hidden cameras by the networks had dropped sharply during recent years, but critics say the success of tabloid shows such as "A Current Affair" and technology that can make video cameras as small as a barrette have renewed interest. PrimeTime Senior Producer Ira Rosen has a different theory. "What happened is that (journalists) became lazy" and avoided time-consuming stories that might have included undercover work, he says. "We filled a void."

Hidden cameras, combined with months-long investigations, have worked well for PrimeTime. Since the program's debut in August 1989, it has aired 29 hidden camera segments – nearly half of those during the past season. They've
included stories on congressional junkets, bogus psychotherapists, home appliance repair scams, phony abortion clinics, unclean meatpacking plants, deadbeat dads and auto insurance fraud, among others. Reports on fraudulent televangelists, abusive day care centers and racial discrimination won national awards.

"The viewer response has been remarkable," says Rosen. "(Hidden camera footage) is the most evocative, interesting and informative way to tell the story. It grabs the readers by the lapels and shakes them and tells them to watch this."

Valerie Hyman, director of broadcast journalism at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, says that PrimeTime "has had a powerful
effect with some very important stories" that probably could not have been done otherwise. But she feels strongly that hidden cameras should be used only after all other alternatives have been exhausted.

PrimeTime Executive Producer Rick Kaplan says his producers and reporters stick to that guideline. "You've got to make sure that what you're doing isn't a stunt but a story," he says. "After all, this is sticky and invasive and I think if you abuse the privilege the audience will rightfully turn on you."

Don Hewitt, executive producer of CBS' "60 Minutes" and a pioneer in the use of hidden cameras, agrees. "Certain stories call for them – I don't think anyone is entitled to commit a crime in private," he says. "But you'd better be right. That's what separates the men from the boys and the women from the girls."

"The reason that the technology is used again and again is that [viewers] do find it appealing," says Deni Elliott, director of Dartmouth's Ethics Institute. "But they're not thinking of the overall consequences," such as the threat to individual privacy. "There are some stories that are important enough that you can justify the use of hidden cameras," she says, "but that's probably about 10 percent of what is being done."