The multimillion-dollar legal and public relations battle Food Lion has waged against ABC News is really a war against investigative reporting.
On Jan. 22, a jury in Greensboro, N.C., ordered us to pay the Food Lion supermarket chain $5.5 million in punitive damages.Food Lion had sued ABC in connection with a "Primetime Live" report that used hidden cameras to expose unsanitary food-handling practices and attempts to sell out-of-date meat and fish. Though Food Lion began court actions before the report was even broadcast, its suit never disputed the truth of our story.
In 1992, "Primetime Live" did extensive research and interviewed 70 current and former employees on the record. At the time, Food Lion was involved in hearings in Congress and an investigation by the Labor Department about the company's labor practices. We sent two reporters to get jobs at Food Lion and to take hidden-camera pictures of what they saw.
Some critics say we could have had Food Lion employees use the hidden cameras. But because some of the allegations were made by a union that was involved in a dispute with the company, we figured Food Lion could dismiss such evidence as having come from disgruntled workers. We decided that it would be best to see for our-selves.
The result: a powerful program, broadcast in November 1992, that rightfully shocked consumers.
Food Lion had already begun its battle. From September 1992 through July 1995, it charged us in successive lawsuits with deceptive trade practices, fraud, breach of fiduciary trust, trespassing, wiretapping, racketeering and copyright violations. The last three charges were thrown out of court. None of the suits challenged the truth of the story.
Food Lion could have sued for libel. Instead, it launched a public relations campaign - including a "Media Hotline" - in which the company accused ABC of misdeeds that had already been dismissed by the judge.
We were fined $1 "for breach of the duty of loyalty" - because the jury found our undercover reporters were more loyal to ABC than to Food Lion - and $1 for trespassing in Food Lion's stores. For the fraud of filing false job applications, we were fined $1,400. Those were the compensatory damages; the $5.5 million was a punishment.
Millions of people knew that we had gone undercover to get the story - we told them so on the air. I understand the jurors who said that journalists need some boundaries. But we give undercover work careful consideration before we undertake it.
We did it in this case because we felt we had to and because we believed it was legal and ethical.
By going undercover and telling a vital story about Food Lion's practices, we were also following a great tradition of American journalism.
Upton Sinclair got a job in a meatpacking plant and wrote "The Jungle," which led to the introduction of meat inspection laws. Then, as now, that kind of investigative reporting was denounced by some. Yet it has produced a stream of prizes and, more important, it has helped make this country a better place to live.
"Primetime Live" reporters have exposed abuses of children in day-care centers and patients in Veterans Administration hospitals. They have uncovered Medicare and Medicaid scams and revealed the horrors of guns and violence in public schools.
Not one of the institutions we investigated would have volunteered to tell all if a reporter had showed up with a camera.
ABC News does not believe that the First Amendment gives us a license to break the law. In this case, our lawyers thought we were within the law. If the jury's punitive award stands, it will help protect powerful institutions that do wrong.
We will appeal because we think the judgment was wrong.
We will appeal because we think this kind of reporting is in the public interest and we should continue doing it.
Roone Arledge is president of ABC News.