iccky

I really don't think you could possibly learn as much about fighting in Iraq by interviewing a few soldiers as you could from a week of convoy duty. Same with homelessness. If a reporter wants to give the real story he needs to know what it is actually like, or as close as he can get.

Further, people, believe it or not, don't always tell the truth in an interview. Maybe the people we see on the streets aren't actually homeless (as has been suggested by several people in this thread). Maybe they all do have huge drug and alcohol problems, or maybe that's a lie we tell ourselves so we feel better about not giving them change. He'll certainly come closer to the truth living among the homeless then just asking them.

I still don't get how this is in anyway unethical. He's not telling the readers that he's a homeless person writing the article. He's telling them he's a reporter who lived on the streets for a few days and then went back to his heated house with running water. Readers can draw their own conclusions about the validity of his account based on these facts (as you have done).

And how the hell is living on the street for a few days "lazy journalism"? Interviewing a homeless person in the comfort of a newsroom would be a hell of a lot easier.