Yesterday word came that NBC had settled a civil lawsuit brought by the sister of Dallas prosecutor Louis William Conradt Jr., who killed himself when police and Dateline's Chris Hansen, along with a camera crew, showed up at his home when he failed to show up for his fake date with a little boy in November 2006. But don't go poking around Dateline's website to brush up on the incident — NBC has all but scrubbed it clean of that entire Perverted Justice investigation. CONTINUED »
Dateline had a certified hit on its hands with "To Catch a Predator," the game-show program where Chris Hansen and Perverted Justice invited would-be kiddie pervs to their camera-laced house, where handcuffs were the door prize. Then Dallas prosecutor Louis William Conradt Jr. had to go and kill himself when NBC's cameras and police officers showed up at his house to arrest him when he failed to show for his sex appointment with a 13-year-old boy, and the backlash ensued: Media moralists' criticism grew louder with calls for lax journalistic ethics and there was the little matter of Conradt's sister Patricia in July suing NBC Universal in a $105 million lawsuit. Now, a resolution. CONTINUED »
Perhaps you saw Chris Hansen's latest undercover camera Dateline show over the weekend. Don't worry, you don't have to lock up your kids this week; in Tricks of the Trade, Hansen went after shady investment "experts" schilling their products to senior citizens, not neighborhood pedophiles.
It wasn't Hansen's strongest series. His whole schtick hung on getting insurance agents to duck questions about penalties that could be incurred if seniors, who could die in the next few years, removed money early from annuity investment accounts. While some of the insurance agents dodged questions or glossed over a few details, none of them outright lied.
But just like To Catch a Predator, where Hansen and Perverted Justice found their project ending up with one of their targets killing himself, Tricks had some of its own maladies. Namely, it appears Hansen is guilty of some misleading of his own.
Misleading viewers, that is. CONTINUED »
What was once a huge franchise success for NBC's Dateline has quickly snowballed into a PR lynching. "To Catch a Predator" – where hunting for Internet pedophiles becomes a family board game hosted by Chris Hansen – has been churning out new episodes (and sickos) like The Hills does melodrama.
But the show, for all the public awareness it's drumming up, already cost one life (and hooked the network a $100 million wrongful death suit), accusations of severe journalistic ethics breaches, a 3-month-long Esquire investigation (with a coverline suggesting NBC cancel the show), and now: an inquiry from ABC's 20/20, which is said to be sniffing around TCAP with "ambush interviews," as TVNewser relays.
NBC, for what it's worth, remains "proud" of the show and says it doesn't plan on changing the format. Though might we suggest a co-host? CNBC's Erin Burnett has total crossover appeal.
Every time we tune into Dateline's pedophile series, we wonder two things: 1) Is Esquire's argument that NBC should cancel the show before someone else winds up dead a valid stance?; and 2) Can this type of programming survive without Chris Hansen?
At least CNN can answer that second one.
Since summer Fridays get even more lax when you work for a blog – from home – we've spent most of the afternoon playing this awesome new Flash game from the Ad Council. Usually seen teaching kids not to accept that first free hit from dealers, the Ad Counil is dishing up ID The Creep, which all but makes Dateline's Chris Hansen irrelevant when it comes to identifying online sex predators. We love how black-and-white the cutesy animations makes the whole process of helping young girls (and only girls, as there are no boy avatars) learn which onlnie chatters, emailers, and IMers are most likely to turn a simple online web cam chat about a MySpace-derived Rihanna vs. Ashanti debate into Dakota Fanning's new movie.
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