GOING UNDERCOVER IN A CULT
In 1979, the Daily News was running an expose of a group called the Church of Bible Understanding that made its living soliciting for dirty rugs to clean while engaging in aggressive street-corner prostelitizing. I was asked to see if I could gain the confidence of the leaders in order to document the inculcation of the young children in the cult's beliefs, which escape me now. I did, and the paper took the extraordinary step of running a special copyright line next to my byline, which was larger and bolder than usual. I also got a nice memo of congratulations from the executive editor, Mike O'Neill, and I soon forgot just how nervous I had been when I first walked in the door of the group.
The group was still around a few years ago, and still controversial, according to this story in the Scranton Times-Tribune.