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nellie bly
Nellie Bly and Other Stunt Girls (and Boys) of the Late 1880s-Early 1900s
Bly was one of the most visible and attention-getting exponents of undercover reporting -- "stunt" or "detective" reporting, as this precursor of full-scale investigative work was known in her day -- though by no means the first or the only.
"Behind Asylum Bars" and "Inside the Madhouse" - Nellie Bly - New York World
One of the best-remembered undercover investigations of all time. Nellie Bly feigns insanity to get herself committed to the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's (now Roosevelt) Island.
Nellie Bly of The New York World
A gathering of the undercover and experiential reporting of Elizabeth Cochrane, later Seaman, who wrote under the pen name of Nellie Bly.
Jail Time Undercover
Reporters have worked as guards or gotten themselves arrested -- sometimes with the aid of authorities and sometimes without -- to investigate conditions inside prisons and jails.
"Seven Days in the Madhouse!" - Frank Smith - Chicago Daily Times
Frank Smith's series, under the editorship of Louis Ruppel at the Chicago Daily Times, got national attention and was, according to Time, a real circulation-builder for the newspaper.
Journalistic Acts of Race, Class, Ethnic and Gender Impersonation
Journalism that required costuming or even physical transformation by reporters reporting on racial, ethnic, gender or social groups not their own.
Other People's Work
Reporters encounter or inhabit the lives of very hard-laboring others.
Asylums Undercover
Since the 1870s, journalists have been posing as patients or attendants to expose horrid conditions and treatment inside mental hospitals. Nellie Bly, incidentally, was not the first.
Uncloaking the Lobbyists
Reporter efforts to get inside the world of lobbyists, both on Capitol Hill and in the statehouses.
"I Was a Mental Patient" - Michael Mok - New York World-Telegram & Sun
One of a number of high-impact undercover investigations undertaken by the New York World Telegram & Sun in the 1960s, including Woody Klein's worst tenement series, Dale Wright's migrant workers series, and George N. Allen's Undercover Teacher. Mok's series won the prestigious Albert Lasker Medical Journalism Award and the Heywood Broun Memorial Award.
"Working with the Working Woman" - Cornelia Stratton Parker - Harper's
Cornelia Stratton Parker engaged with low-wage earning women in six different jobs so she could "see the world through their eyes" and for the time being, close her own. Her six-part series appeared in Harper's Magazine between June and December of 1921 and as a book, published by Harper Brothers, the following year.
Exposing Predators
Across the world, journalists have used undercover techniques to expose individual predators and as well as major sex crime rings.
Quacks, Thieves, Scam Artists and Hucksters
These are stings to expose scam artists, quacks and hucksters who prey on the needs or naivete of their customers, clients, or patients.
The Presidents Club Scandal and Other Such Undercover Exposes
An undercover investigation by the Financial Times of behavior toward hostesses at The Presidents Club's annual men-only charity event in London and reaction to the story.