TVSquad

I've never been a fan of Dateline's "To Catch A Predator." Despite helping to put sexual predators behind bars, the series is tainted by egregious spectacle, and recently resulted in the suicide of one man in Murphy, Texas. Consequently, the district attorney has refused to prosecute the other twenty-four men who were caught in the sting.

Readers can discuss in the comments the value of one man's life over that of anyone else's, but that's not the point I'm trying to make. What I'm saying is, despite selling the show as some kind of humanitarian crusade, reporter Chris Hansen and the producers behind "To Catch A Predator" both want and need that moment of public humiliation for the show to work and for people to watch. They're putting out a fire, yes, but they're doing it by throwing manure on it.

Dateline NBC's journalistic integrity is being called into question after it was revealed that the network paid an organization to set up a pedophile sting for an ongoing investigation titled "To Catch A Predator." An organization called "Perverted Justice" was paid by NBC to set up a sting operation in which sexual predators were lured to a house in Ohio where they were caught by officials. NBC is insisting it did nothing wrong, and that Web-based crimes require new ways of approaching stories. Others disagree, claiming that by money exchanging hands the credibility of the story was affected.

The USA Today piece also had this quote: "NBC said it received at least 15,000 letters or e-mails in response to its February story. Not one parent complained about the journalistic methods used to film the piece, [Dateline NBC executive producer David Corvo] said." Well, they certainly didn't receive any complaints about NBC paying Perverted Justice, because no one knew about it when the segments aired.