A former editor of The Dartmouth Review and current ABC News employee was recently accused of illegally taping a doctor in Maryland for a television expose and could face five years in prison if convicted.
Assistant Network Producer Deborah Stone '87 is being charged, along with four other ABC employees, with illegally recording Dr. Grace Ziem for a special program on "junk science."
While at Dartmouth, Stone was involved in the 1986 attack on anti-apartheid shanties, which had been erected on the Green by students.
The taping incident has been reported on by the Associated Press, The New York Times and the Valley News.
Ziem, who is an expert on illnesses caused by toxic chemicals, said she discovered phony patients had been sent to her, and one of her representatives said he heard Stone and ABC News Reporter John Stossel, also charged with illegal taping, say a meeting with Ziem had been recorded.
Maryland is one of 12 states in which it is illegal to tape record a conversation without the permission of both parties, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
According to a statement of the spokesperson for ABC News, Ziem "has filed a baseless application for criminal charges. She accuses five individuals of being involved in making hidden recordings of conversations with her in violation of the law in pursuit of a story. In fact, no such recordings were made or criminal laws violated."
But according to an article in The New York Times, Ziem and her research assistant said Stone and Stossel "had admitted in interviews with two newspaper reporters that the doctor was surreptitiously recorded."
During her tenure at Dartmouth, Stone was managing editor and editor-in-chief of The Review.
In January, 1986, she was a participant, along with several other review writers, in an effort to destroy anti-apartheid shanties erected on the Green and was suspended indefinitely from Dartmouth.
Her punishment was appealed and reduced to a single term following a 22-hour Committee On Standards hearing.
The shanties, built by a group called the Dartmouth Community for Divestment to protest the College's investments in South Africa, had stood on the Green for two months before Stone and others organized a group to remove them with sledgehammers in the middle of the night.
In a letter to then-President David McLaughlin, Stone wrote, "We are merely picking trash up off the Green, and restoring pride and sparkle to the College we love so much."
Current Editor-in-Chief of The Review James Panero '98 wrote in an e-mail message that he thinks Stone "is a superb journalist and a good friend. As a student and Editor-in-Chief of The Dartmouth Review, she frequently placed herself at personal risk for her convictions."
"Now [Stone] leads a highly successful career at ABC News," Panero wrote. "She remains a bold reporter who refuses to back down."
