Chester 24, Dateline 1*

Re: Chester 24, Dateline 0!

Damn, forgot about him.

Dateline averted a shutout.

 

Agreed. And I'd be fine if Dateline just said, freak it, we're not performing "journalism" anymore; we're doing something even more valuable for society (e.g. America's Most Wanted).

This latest scenario obviously involves either a police department that messed up with the evidence or a jackass DA. Don't blame Dateline's "ethics."

 

Why not?
Since when does a TV show do law enforcement? Since when does a TV show do entrapment?
Leaving aside the fact that the PD and the DA may or may not have screwed up, what value do these Dateline show have? They're not "taking pervs off the street" if the evidence is worthless in court. You can justify the shows on the basis of explotation for ratings, but that's the only reason.

 

The evidence is not worthless in court. They were batting 1.000 until this episode, so they *are* "taking pervs off the street."

And your "since when?" questions are weak. Who cares since when? Is TV only allowed to do things it has done before? We'd still be watching Uncle Milty every night with that attitude.

 

Good idea, terrible execution. You could tell just watching the show that they were trampling all over procedural guidelines and it was bound to get thrown out of court. If you want to get pervs off the street, do it the right way and respect the rule of law. Seems pretty simple.

 

It's still batting 1.000 in the courtroom. This case didn't get thrown out either. The DA refused to prosecute.

 

JackS mentioned America's Most Wanted. IIRC, they mimicked To Catch A Predator using a beauty queen for a decoy.

I think the DA in those cases had to drop them because the beauty queen decided not to testify in the trials.

 

...which just goes to show you that DL is doing it smarter. Perverted Justice does this with the cops regardless of whether or not Dateline cameras are there. They are bulldogs. No recruiting beauty queens and no worries about not testifying.

 

Entrapment? No.

Exploitation? My heart bleeds for the would-be child molesters being exploited. That's a shame.

Again, this is the first time a prosecutor has had any issue with the evidence. No one's saying why... but given that a former prosecutor was one of those who solicited sex from a child and then killed himself when he found out it wasn't really a kid, I have my suspicions that evidence wasn't really the key issue here.

 

Exploitation of the problem.
Do you honestly believe Hansen and NBC are doing this for the poor little children?
They're putting on a freak show for an audience of mouthbreathers, and they're doing their bit to keep the country afraid of its own shadow.
Fuckabuncha them. Let the cops do their jobs.

 

The worst part of this is it's not news. It's reality TV.

Yet a supposedly respected news station is happily blurring the lines for ratings ...

 

Just because they're doing it for ratings doesn't mean they're not doing it for the children. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

As for the benefits:
1. I'll bet the publicity of this effort is leading police departments to devote more resources to the problem.
2. I'll bet the threat of being caught in front of a national audience is even more of a deterrent to potential pervs than being arrested (in relative obscurity).
3. I'll bet the presence of Dateline cameras leads to an even better conviction rate of perps.

P.S. I'm fine with describing this as reality TV rather than news. Would there be this big outcry if NBC just decided to move the program to the entertainment division?