It's a teenage wasteland

This bothers me. A quote from the latest coverage on David McSwane, the teenage journalist who ran a sting on his local recruiting office.

McSwane says his scrupulous documentation has for the most part prevented naysayers from calling his investigation false. Still, he says, some have questioned the ethics involved in a deceptive operation like the one he orchestrated: "Any undercover investigation, you're going in there as a lie. And a lot of people don't like it."

I don't understand that logic. How can anyone offer anything but praise for this kid? Sure he misrepresented his circumstances, but he was exposing a much greater lie. Isn't that the job of an investigative journalist?

What was he supposed to do? Ask the recruiter if he would be willing to be taped, while he was breaking the law? Should he have asked for a signed confession? Don't undercover cops lie for the same reason?

For myself, I hope there's about 2000 more budding journalists just like him. They might just save the mass media from extinction.

God knows the old model is becoming obsolete.