The Smoking Gun has a copy of a lawsuit against NBC for the firing of a 21 year veteran producer that said that Dateline’s “To Catch a Predator” was against NBC’s ethical standards.
From TSG:
According to her complaint, which was filed last week in U.S. District Court in Chicago, Bartel charges that many of the program’s ethical lapses stem from its relationship with Perverted Justice, a shadowy vigilante group that the show uses to “troll for and lure targets into its sting.” A copy of Bartel’s lawsuit can be found below. According to Bartel, by paying Perverted Justice, NBC has given the group a “financial incentive to lie to trick targets of its sting.” The identities of the group’s 50-plus volunteers were kept secret from her, Bartel says, adding that Perverted Justice does not provide “complete transcripts from its trolling operations,” so network officials “cannot independently verify the accuracy” of the group’s transcripts. In some instances, Bartel claims, sting targets are “led into additional acts of humiliation (such as being encouraged to remove their clothes) in order to enhance the comedic effect of the public exposure of these persons.”
I was just watching a show of Lary King Live on the Joost internet TV service, where Chris Hansen claimed that they were acting ethically and there was nothing wrong with the way they did their show.
Evidently there was a show where a guy walked into the house, figured out he was making a mistake, and left the house right away. They still tackled and arrested him. It is obvious that they are baiting these guys in order to get ratings. Sure, they are catching some legit bad guys, but you have to wonder, would these people actually do this if they weren’t egged on by this group?
(see update below)
