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In 2015, Al-Jazeera’s Investigative Unit had a question: what did the National Rifle Association say about mass shootings behind closed doors?

To answer it, they planned a lengthy undercover investigation, in which a reporter posed as an Australian gun lobbyist to infiltrate meetings with the NRA and with One Nation, a far-right, anti-immigration party.

The result, released in a two part documentary that aired on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, is — at the very least — compelling.

In hidden camera footage shot during a trip to the United States last year, senior figures from One Party are heard discussing the influence a donation from the American gun lobby could buy in the Australia’s parliament. The cameras also captured advice from the NRA on how to respond to mass shootings and sway public opinion toward gun ownership.

Australia has some of the toughest gun laws in the world, and the country is proud of it. So news that a political party’s officials were willing to soften the rules for foreign donations were met with alarm.

Since then, Pauline Hanson, the party’s leader, has said the comments were taken out of context — she called Al-Jazeera an “Islamist” organization and a “Middle Eastern foreign agent.” But she also attacked the report’s ethics, calling it an “illegal, covert operation.”

Was she at least a little bit right?

There are of course many well-known accounts of undercover journalism and like many people, I’ve read them with interest, from Gloria Steinem’s infiltration of Playboy Clubs to Shane Bauer’s stint as an American prison guard.

It’s one solution to a challenge all reporters think about: How do you get the information you need from those who don’t want to share?

I spoke to two professors about Al-Jazeera’s report, and also asked The New York Times’s standards editor, Phil Corbett, for his views.

Phil made clear that according to the Times ethics guide, staff members “should disclose their identity to people they cover” and “may not record conversations without the prior consent of all parties to the conversations.”

Exceptions involving sustained deception have been extremely rare, he said.

“Overall, we think, this is the best way to insure both fairness to our subjects and credibility with our readers.”

That being said, he added, “we recognize that other news organizations have sometimes taken different approaches, and there is a long history of undercover reporting that unearthed important information.”

The two professors I interviewed both argued that the story’s main discovery — that an Australian political party was aligning themselves with a controversial lobby group to potentially change policy — was clearly in the public interest.

But they also agreed that there were two key areas that raise questions and concerns: The use of hidden cameras and the fact that an undercover reporter became a part of the story.

One justification is that the documentary was transparent about its methods, said Andrew Dodd, director for the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne.

“The audience is fully aware of the artifice that was created,” he said. “The audience is therefore able to make an informed decision about what they’re watching.”

But to go undercover for so long on this scale is not considered normal reporting “in any way, shape or form,” he added. “This should be a last resort. This has to remain extraordinary journalism that is practiced rarely and only for the very best reasons.”

That reason would be to bring truths to the public that would not ever reach them otherwise, he said.

He pointed to one moment in the documentary when the NRA discusses their social media strategy after shootings. “You see a glimpse of truth in that moment that you couldn’t get in a two hour debate,” he said.

But Peter Greste, a former journalist for Al-Jazeera, now a professor at the University of Queensland, said the story crossed a line in having a reporter broker the meeting between the One Nation party and the NRA.

“We are supposed to be observers to the news, not participants,” he said. “It’s inappropriate for journalists to become parts of the story the way they clearly did in this case.”

While the findings are “distasteful,” the party was not doing anything illegal, he added.

What also raises concerns is the party’s decision to refer Al-Jazeera to the federal police force and Australia’s national security agency, which Mr. Greste called a “dangerous precedent” — the consequences of which he is intimately familiar with.

While working for Al-Jazeera in Cairo in 2013, Mr. Greste was arrested and detained by the Egyptian government for terrorism offences. “What happened to us in Egypt was the government using national security to effectively silence the press.”

Given the cynicism toward journalism these days, he said, upholding the role of the impartial watchdog to gain public trust is more important than ever: “When you let ethical standards slip then I think we do damage to that support.”

So where do you stand on this? How important is ethical reporting to you in the pursuit of stories in the public interest? Shoot us an email at [email protected] or join our NYT Australia Facebook group where we’ll be discussing this in detail.

Now, onto a selection of the best Times stories of the week!

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Australia and New Zealand

This week, we continue reporting on Christchurch and bring you a Netflix guide.

• Prosecutors Accuse Australian Journalists of Violating Gag Order on Cardinal’s Trial: The journalists could face fines and possibly prison time over the allegations, which stem from Cardinal George Pell’s trial and conviction on sexual abuse charges.

• 10 Days After Christchurch Shootings, Jacinda Ardern Announces a Trip to China: The announcement signaled a shift after signs of growing tensions between the two countries.

• Mourners Honor Dead With Call To Prayer in Christchurch: “This terrorist sought to tear our nation apart with an evil ideology that has torn the world apart — but instead we have shown that New Zealand is unbreakable,” said one imam.

• ‘This Egg Has United People,’ Teenager Says of Protest Against Bigotry: 17-year-old Will Connolly broke his silence on egg-actly what happened and his reaction to his newfound found. (I had to.)

• ’10 Things I Hate About You,’ When Heath Ledger Was Just Breaking Through: An interview with the cast, screenwriters and director of the late 90s rom-com classic.

• The Best Movies and TV Shows New to Netflix Australia in April: Making Netflix choices just too easy for you.

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Mueller Report

Last Friday, Attorney General William P. Barr told congressional leaders that the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has concluded his inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The investigation found that neither President Trump nor any of his aides conspired with the Russian government, but did not draw conclusions on any obstruction of justice. To catch up on the highlights, read our live briefing here. You can also read a summary of the report here.

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Around the Times

Four of our most popular stories of the week.

• Adventurous, Alone, Attacked: The number of female solo travelers has skyrocketed, but amid Instagram-worthy escapades are tales of violence and death, raising questions about how the world is greeting women who travel alone.

• The Daily Miracle: Finding Magic Inside The Times’s Printing Plant: The photographer Christopher Payne spent two years shooting The Times’s printing plant in College Point, Queens. He captured the craft, precision, and unexpected beauty of the newspaper printing process.

• ‘Dog Suicide Bridge’: Why Do So Many Pets Keep Leaping Into a Scottish Gorge?: Scots insist that hundreds of dogs have been mysteriously compelled to throw themselves off a stone bridge.

• Alternate Brexit Plans Rejected; Theresa May Offers to Step Down: The development in the Brexit saga.

And We Recommend …

This easy-peasy shakshuka recipe from NYT Cooking which I’ve probably made about 30 times and will continue to make for the rest of my life. It’s the perfect Saturday morning meal when oats just won’t cut it and you need something savory, comforting and warm. Let me know if you give it a try at [email protected].

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