The Final Frontier

It is a long-held belief the news media will go to almost any length to get a story. Television reporters have waded into the middle of civil-war firefights to show viewers and readers human suffering up close, used hidden-camera tricks to flush out stories on consumer fraud, and even laid down their lives to expose human-rights atrocities by international governments. Over the last 10 years, in the midst of a telecommunications revolution, the media can now gather and report stories in ways that once seemed impossible.