“Corpus Christi police had its first sting of johns soliciting prostitutes Dec. 13 ahead of launching a Web site that will display the names and mug shots of those charged. The sting resulted in four arrests. A Caller-Times reporter who was participating in the police department’s ride-along program was present during the events that led to two of the arrests. Caller-Times Editor Libby Averyt said Wednesday the decision for the reporter to get involved in the activities by posing as a prostitute, which led to the arrests, was a mistake. ‘Having a reporter become involved in law enforcement activities was a mistake and will not happen again,’ Averyt said. ‘The thought was to try to give our readers an inside view of a new police initiative, and unfortunately we didn’t think through the situation as well as we should have. For us to maintain our watchdog role, we should not get involved in law enforcement activities and will not in the future.’ When police announced in September the stings of local johns would result in their appearing on a police Web site, the Caller-Times contacted the police department to learn more about plans for the operation and wanted to see how the operation worked, firsthand, the first time it was run. It was agreed with Police Chief Pete Alvarez that reporter Venessa Santos-Garza would pose as an undercover prostitute. Police have not yet launched the Web site.” —Caller-Times (US)

(Site requires registration but Google has a cache of the article.)

Ms. Santos-Garza is a beat reporter for the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. Apparently she does mostly human-interest stories. Peruse her article titles and you see such shmaltz as “Lawyer Praised for His Heart,” “Football Dream Fulfilled,” and “Raise a Glass of Lemonade to Emily.” Only one of her previous columns concerned prostitution (Google cache), and there it was a matter of a parent complaining about how there were so many hookers in his neighborhood that he had to explain to his six-year-old what a prostitute is.

Given her publishing history, it would be hard to say that Ms. Santos-Garza was carrying out an ideological agenda by posing as a hooker in a police sting. And while it may be true that the thought of newspapers getting in bed with law enforcement — so to speak — will send many advocates of journalistic “objectivity” into conniptions, really it’s too bad that the Caller-Times decided against the publication of Ms. Santos-Garza’s article. No doubt it would be interesting to see a sting from the inside.

And is it really so egregious for a reporter to collaborate with a cop? It’s not as though journalists and law enforcement personnel don’t already engage in a behind-the-scenes tit-for-tat over sources, resources, “scoops” and exposure. What’s more, in this day and age, it’s difficult even to get too worked up over the fear that the media will represent nothing but the “official” state view, as in China. With the ascendancy of the internet and the explosion of blogging, “official” but untrue versions of events don’t stand all that much chance of becoming the only version of events. Look at what happened when bloggers exposed Dan Rather’s questionable documents of President Bush’s military records. If the Corpus Christi Caller-Times was just a mouthpiece for the local cops, citizens of Corpus Christi would call them out on it.

In short, the safe, doctrinaire move is to suppress Ms. Santos-Garza’s reporting. The ballsier move would be to publish the piece.

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