University officials were highly critical of ABC News's undercover tactics used during the production of a Primetime Live report due to air tonight (Thursday) on alleged security lapses at campus nuclear reactors. The program sent college interns -- all Carnegie fellows -- to visit 25 college campuses and see how easy it would be for them to gain access to guards and control rooms. Today's (Thursday) Kansas City Star reported that when two interns visited Kansas State University, the FBI was already aware of the ABC sting and had alerted the reactor staff. Hoping to prove his suspicions about the two young women, the newspaper said, reactor operator Evan Cullens asked them to pose for a photograph. "They were playing the flirt card to get information," he said. "We wanted a picture of them for the FBI, so we flirted back." Earle Holland, director of research information at Ohio State University, said that when the same two women began acting suspiciously during a public tour of the reactor at that school, they were asked to leave. "I believe in investigative journalism," Holland said. "We're willing to take our lumps when we deserve them. But this was a cheap shot." Ted Frederickson of the University of Kansas, who teaches journalistic ethics, told the Star that ABC could have found much of the information it wanted on reactor security in other ways -- in federal reports, for example. "When we're supposedly in the truth business, being untruthful hurts."I liked this bit from the Star (is the article still accessible?):
At one point, a reactor researcher asked the women what had drawn them to K-State. One of them, Cullens recalled, said her boyfriend lived in Kansas.
“We asked where, and she sort of pointed off to the southwest and said, ‘Over there,’ ” he said. “We figured there had to be something strange going on.”In better news,
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