Undercover and over the line – a sloppy video sparks an Iowa witch hunt
Bad edits and worse ethics
The use of undercover video is a valid journalistic technique, but it must be used only in rare instances and with careful guidelines in place.
None of that happened in this week’s release of a badly edited undercover video that purports to show a University of Iowa official saying, in essence, that despite the ban on diversity, equity and inclusion enacted by Iowa’s lily-white Republican leaders – the University had only changed some words but was still basically using DEI.
Governor Reynolds, Attorney General Bird, the Iowa Board of Regents and the university president are shocked – shocked, I tell you! And they have all launched investigations. The employee shown in the video was placed on leave, and now a second undercover video seemingly accuses another university employee of the same thing, and that person is also on leave.
The knee-jerk reaction is frightening, but predictable. It’s all based on one of the shoddiest pieces of “journalism” that I’ve seen in a long time. It’s gotcha journalism at its worst.
Mystery man with a camera
The video first surfaced – where else? - on Fox News. Fox doesn’t identify the source. It does not identify who the man is holding the hidden camera as he sits in the office of Andrea Tinoco, Assistant Director of Leadership and Student Organization Development, recording her without her knowledge.
The video on the Fox News website runs three minutes and 38 seconds. In that time, I counted 26 jump cut edits. The “time code” from the camera indicates the interview started at 7:18 and goes to 7:42. That means the interview is at least 24 minutes long, but we only hear 3:38 of it. We have no idea what she said in between the sound bites that aired. One particularly egregious segment starts at 7:22, jumps ahead to 7:37, then back to 7:35—all in one stitched-together sentence.
In other words, it’s a mess. You can see the man’s arm and leg while he holds the camera and seems to be egging on Tinoco, at times gasping in disbelief that state officials are banning DEI, saying at one point, “Oh no!”
This should have prompted a LOT of questions
When I ran a newsroom, if somebody brought me undercover video like this, we would have had lots of questions. Who are you? How did you get this? Who did you tell Tinoco you are? If you lied about who you are and why you’re in her office, we’re not using it.
In short, it never would have seen the light of day on a newscast for which I was responsible. And I certainly wouldn’t have aired it without attributing the video to the source, which Fox never does and which apparently Iowa’s Republican leaders don’t care about.
Another video. Will there be more?
Late Friday, a second video emerged, this time showing another University of Iowa employee acknowledging that DEI language on websites has been swapped out for words like “community” and “belonging.” KGAN-TV in Cedar Rapids attributes the video to a website called Townhall.
Townhall.com describes itself as “the leading source for conservative news and political commentary and analysis.” The voice of the person holding the camera sounds the same as the person in the first video, so it is probably safe to assume Townhall is responsible for both.
When I watched the video on Townhall’s website, a super comes up depicting the location as “Universoty of Iowa”, if that tells us anything about what we’re dealing with.
KGAN says this second university employee has also been placed on paid administrative leave.
It appears the man with the hidden camera was making the rounds, fishing for footage—hoping university employees would express frustration over top-down political mandates being shoved down their throats by Iowa’s culturally tone-deaf leaders.
There may be more videos to come.
But here’s what truly disturbs me: we now live in a world where you can’t sit in your own office and have a conversation with someone without wondering if they’re secretly recording you—then cutting your words into a 3-minute smear campaign for cable news and political theater.
Racing to score cheap political points
Before racing to put out a statement that they were “appalled” by the comments, wouldn’t a responsible governor and attorney general want to learn a little information first? Can we find out who shot this video? Can we talk to the employee first to get her side of the story? After all, Governor Reynolds is her boss. She has a responsibility to treat her employees fairly, not score cheap political points at their expense.
The entire episode is appalling—from the sneaky videographer trolling university offices, to Fox News giving the footage a platform, to Iowa’s Republican leaders who keep pretending cultural change isn’t happening all around them.
Meantime, be careful who you talk to. Be careful what you say. You never know when that polite stranger you’re talking to is about to put you on Fox News and ruin your life.
Two colleagues in the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative have their own takes on this hidden-video affair. I recommend Rekha Basu’s column, “What’s really appalling? Iowa leaders’ suppression of free speech on campus” and Ed Tibbetts writing, “The enforcers of Iowa RightThink have a new target”.
No shock that Kim and Brenna had conniptions. They are just following in the footsteps of their fearless leader. Thanks, Dave, for putting this in proper perspective!
1. The Board of Regents should be called into the superintendents office for its criticism about employees efforts to comply with the recent law. There is no mention of any defense or encouragement of any programs that promote compliance with all current federal and state anti-discrimination laws, as well as promote fair treatment, prevent harassment, and are inclusive of people with disabilities and people of color.
2. Impact on Financial Aid: The Board of Regents should be spending its time and taxpayer dollars to investigate how many college students may lose financial aid and to research how many families of working class backgrounds are going to be unable to afford any higher education. Recent reports highlight concerns from college leaders that a new wave of loan defaults could lead to institutions losing access to federal student aid, which would be especially detrimental to students who rely on Pell grants. The Board of Regents has also proposed tuition and fee increases while warning of "a possible new world with less funding" for higher education, a combination that could disproportionately harm working-class students seeking to afford their education.
I would prefer to see the regents come up with policies how to help working class families adversely affected impacted by Pell grant restrictions under the Trump administration.