Is every journalist an undercover journalist?

The label undercover immediately evokes disguises, false identities, and hidden cameras—elements that seem to set it apart from the rest of journalism. Yet in reality, the boundaries are far more blurred. Does it truly make sense to treat undercover reporting as something distinct, or is every investigation ultimately a negotiation between the need for transparency and concealment? Aren’t omission, access, trust, and even deception present in many journalistic techniques? This panel opens a four-voice dialogue on risks, ethics, and methodology, turning journalism into the object of its own inquiry: is undercover work the method journalism fears most, or the one it cannot do without? And why, in the age of surveillance, is the very tool designed to penetrate the most inaccessible systems still so contested?