[Bly] took an undercover assignment for which she agreed to feign insanity to investigate reports of brutality and neglect at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island. [...]
Once admitted to the asylum, Bly abandoned any pretense at mental illness and began to behave as she would normally. The hospital staff seemed unaware that she was no longer “insane” and instead began to report her ordinary actions as symptoms of her illness. Even her pleas to be released were interpreted as further signs of mental illness. Speaking with her fellow patients, Bly was convinced that some were as “sane” as she was.
Bly experienced the deplorable conditions firsthand. The nurses behaved obnoxiously and abusively, telling the patients to shut up, and beating them if they did not. The food consisted of gruel broth, spoiled beef, bread that was little more than dried dough, and dirty undrinkable water. The dangerous patients were tied together with ropes. The patients were made to sit for much of each day on hard benches with scant protection from the cold. Waste was all around the eating places. Rats crawled all around the hospital. [...]
The bath water was rarely changed, with many patients bathing in the same filthy water. Even when the water was eventually changed, the staff did not scrub or clean out the bath, instead throwing the next patient into a stained, dirty tub. The patients also shared bath towels, with healthy patients forced to dry themselves with a towel previously used by patients with skin inflammations, boils, or open sores.
Interestingly...
While physicians and staff worked to explain how she had deceived so many professionals, Bly’s report prompted a grand jury to launch its own investigation[9] with Bly assisting. The jury’s report resulted in an $850,000 increase in the budget of the Department of Public Charities and Corrections. The grand jury also ensured that future examinations were more thorough such that only the seriously ill were committed to the asylum.
I can’t say I’m happy with failure being rewarded with a higher budget. Still, it may have been true that their budget was insufficient to provide sanitary and humane conditions. Anyway, the report itself seems to have been important and worthwhile.
I agree that this investigation was worthwhile and important.
But is it a case of “lying to interview subjects”? That is what we’re talking about, after all. Did Bly even interview anyone, in the course of her investigation?
Undercover investigative journalism has some interesting ethical conundrums of its own, but it’s not clear what it has to do with interviews, or lying to the subjects thereof…
Looking at Wiki’s Undercover Journalism article, one that comes to mind is Nellie Bly’s Ten Days in a Mad-House.
Interestingly...
I can’t say I’m happy with failure being rewarded with a higher budget. Still, it may have been true that their budget was insufficient to provide sanitary and humane conditions. Anyway, the report itself seems to have been important and worthwhile.
I agree that this investigation was worthwhile and important.
But is it a case of “lying to interview subjects”? That is what we’re talking about, after all. Did Bly even interview anyone, in the course of her investigation?
Undercover investigative journalism has some interesting ethical conundrums of its own, but it’s not clear what it has to do with interviews, or lying to the subjects thereof…