American Ugly
By way of disclosure: I gave up watching television several years ago. I have a television, but I don't turn it on except to watch videos I've rented. I've never seen an episode of "Lost," and I've never voted for any "American Idol." I do, however, get the lowdown on most popular shows at lunchtime when my colleagues discuss what they watched the previous night. Those conversations have pretty much convinced me I made the right decision when I unplugged.
What my friends had not mentioned, however, was a program called "To Catch A Predator." I guess either it's not all that popular or its subject isn't exactly lunchtime fare. As a result, I was taken aback by Adam Cohen's column in today's NY Times.
In November 2006, a camera crew from “Dateline NBC” and a police SWAT team descended on the Texas home of Louis William Conradt Jr., a 56-year-old assistant district attorney. The series’ “To Catch a Predator” team had allegedly caught Mr. Conradt making online advances to a decoy who pretended to be a 13-year-old boy. When the police and TV crew stormed Mr. Conradt’s home, he took out a handgun and shot himself to death. [Emphasis added]
As a result of this ugly incident, Mr. Conradt's sister has filed a wrongful death lawsuit agains NBC.
"Dateline NBC" used to be a news show, not a "reality" game show, but apparently there's been some hybridization the past several years. What is significant, however, is that the police were very cooperative with the "To Catch a Predator" team.
NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” franchise is based on an ugly premise. The show lures people into engaging in loathsome activities. It then teams up with the police to stage a humiliating, televised arrest, while the accused still has the presumption of innocence.
Each party to the bargain compromises its professional standards. Rather than hold police accountable, “Dateline” becomes their partners — and may well prod them to more invasive and outrageous actions than they had planned. When Mr. Conradt did not show up at the “sting house” — the usual “To Catch a Predator” format — producers allegedly asked police as a “favor” to storm his home. Ms. Conradt contends that the show encourages police “to give a special intensity to any arrests, so as to enhance the camera effect.”
In effect, NBC was busy creating news, and managing it for heightened television effect. That's not what journalism is supposed to be about. As a result, at least one judge has held that Ms. Conradt's law suit can proceed to trial.
Now, I'm usually in favor of construing the First Amendment rights to free speech and a free press as liberally as possible. I'm having a hard time doing that in this case. Adam Cohen actually makes a pretty good point in his closing paragraph:
There are First Amendment concerns, of course, when courts consider suits over TV shows. But when the media act more as police than as journalists, and actually push the police into more extreme violations of rights than the police would come up with themselves, the free speech defense begins to weaken.
What my friends had not mentioned, however, was a program called "To Catch A Predator." I guess either it's not all that popular or its subject isn't exactly lunchtime fare. As a result, I was taken aback by Adam Cohen's column in today's NY Times.
In November 2006, a camera crew from “Dateline NBC” and a police SWAT team descended on the Texas home of Louis William Conradt Jr., a 56-year-old assistant district attorney. The series’ “To Catch a Predator” team had allegedly caught Mr. Conradt making online advances to a decoy who pretended to be a 13-year-old boy. When the police and TV crew stormed Mr. Conradt’s home, he took out a handgun and shot himself to death. [Emphasis added]
As a result of this ugly incident, Mr. Conradt's sister has filed a wrongful death lawsuit agains NBC.
"Dateline NBC" used to be a news show, not a "reality" game show, but apparently there's been some hybridization the past several years. What is significant, however, is that the police were very cooperative with the "To Catch a Predator" team.
NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” franchise is based on an ugly premise. The show lures people into engaging in loathsome activities. It then teams up with the police to stage a humiliating, televised arrest, while the accused still has the presumption of innocence.
Each party to the bargain compromises its professional standards. Rather than hold police accountable, “Dateline” becomes their partners — and may well prod them to more invasive and outrageous actions than they had planned. When Mr. Conradt did not show up at the “sting house” — the usual “To Catch a Predator” format — producers allegedly asked police as a “favor” to storm his home. Ms. Conradt contends that the show encourages police “to give a special intensity to any arrests, so as to enhance the camera effect.”
In effect, NBC was busy creating news, and managing it for heightened television effect. That's not what journalism is supposed to be about. As a result, at least one judge has held that Ms. Conradt's law suit can proceed to trial.
Now, I'm usually in favor of construing the First Amendment rights to free speech and a free press as liberally as possible. I'm having a hard time doing that in this case. Adam Cohen actually makes a pretty good point in his closing paragraph:
There are First Amendment concerns, of course, when courts consider suits over TV shows. But when the media act more as police than as journalists, and actually push the police into more extreme violations of rights than the police would come up with themselves, the free speech defense begins to weaken.
Labels: Free Press
posted by Diane at 4:06 AM
7 Comments:
Diane & Ruth:
Did you hear about this incident from last year?
NBC 'Catch a Predator' sting shakes up Texas town
DA won't prosecute any of the cases
By Grant Slater, ASSOCIATED PRESS
MURPHY, Texas – A sting in which police teamed up with “Dateline NBC” to catch online pedophiles was supposed to send a flinty-eyed, Texas-style warning about this Dallas suburb: Don't mess with Murphy.
Instead, it has turned into a fiasco.
One of the 25 men caught in the sting – a prosecutor from a neighboring county – committed suicide when police came to arrest him. The Murphy city manager who approved the operation lost his job in the ensuing furor.
It's not just this case. The whole series is creepy and questionable. Chris Hansen plays the host, confronts these characters who show up expecting to find a teenage girl, reads their messages to them and then sends them out the door to be arrested, often rather violently. Cops with guns drawn, knowing these guys aren't armed, surround them, often throw him on the ground and haul them off to jail, all while the cameras are rolling. The guys are brought in by a rather shady little organization that trolls for them on chatrooms. I'm not going to defend sex predators but these guysa are getting lured in. Why is this on camera?
Sorry folks. The show does not "lure[s] people into engaging in loathsome activities."
It catches them in the loathsome activities they are engaging in whether the TV show is around or not. The show does not entice pedophiles.
I have not one bit of sympathy for these guys. No one trolls for them, they show up on their own in chat rooms where they expect to find underage girls, by their own admissions on camera!
Yes, a man committed suicide when he was about to be arrested for soliciting a minor for sexual purposes. Where's the sympathy for the girls he has preyed upon before he was caught? Same with the others, where's they sympathy for the ones who were preyed upon?
It amazes me that the pedophiles are being depicted as the wronged parties here.
And what amazes me is how quickly people are to forget.... innocent until proven guilty... until of course they are the one who is picked up....
The lawsuit will be figured into the costs of producing the show.
I've never seen an episode of "Lost," and I've never voted for any "American Idol."
Me neither, Diane. But I did turn the thing on and watch the Super Bowl.
Honestly, I spend more time now on the innert00bz than I ever did as a kid when I watched TV...and sometimes I have to wonder if it's a good thing.
That's my concern troll moment for the night.
~
P.S. I mean when I was a not so young kid...when I was actually a kid, our TV was broken, allegedly, and we didn't watch it at all.
~
hcgorman, I believe in innocent until proven guilty. Many of the men you are feeling so much sympathy for admitted, on air, that this was not their first time visiting an underage person in this manner.
These people were not enticed; they were not entrapped.
Too bad you can't find sympathy for the kids.
Post a Comment
<< Home