Yes, the idea of grown men looking for sex with minors is disgusting and despicable, but it is Chris Hansen’s responsibility as a journalist to simply present the facts and keep his attitudes and opinions to himself, no matter the issue. It is very difficult to present a fair and accurate story if you have a strong opinion on one side or the other. Letting your viewers know you have an opinion on a story is crossing a line that should never be crossed, in my opinion.
Here’s the other thing:
If Dateline wants to set up a sting to catch pervs soliciting minors because it makes for good ratings, then go for it. But Dateline should not be setting up sting operations for the police. Journalists are supposed to report the news, not work in law enforcement.
Well, they did balance the story with input from the psychologist who asserted that prison alone is ineffective in curbing their tendencies, and that only long-term congitive therapy backed up with criminal punishment works.
No doubt our excellent health care system, already superbly distributing medical care to law-abiding citizens, and with its respect for the validity of mental disorders, will rise to meet this crisis. And I am the queen of Sheba.
I get them impression that is what they did. They worked with PJ to get these guys to the house. They set up the hidden cameras to capture evidence for the PD. The PD caught these guys as they left the building.
If anything I think they helped the PD because of the vast amount of technology they brought to the table. A bunch of remote controlled cameras and a kitchen wired for sound and tech people to set this all up and run it. I’m going to guess the cost for this to the PD was zero.
When the PD make the arrest they have chat logs, phone logs, video and audio evidence to bring to court. What more could you ask for?
I have seen all three Dateline child molester stings. For Chris Hansen not to express his incredulity in the moment would be a superhuman act.
Just in that episode alone, he had a guy come in who had, moments before, watched another guy get arrested in the driveway. Another had seen Chris Hansen on another of their specials, and still tried to pretend he was there for some other reason. On the last one, a guy came in and took off all his clothes. After a brief conversation, he left (the previous two specials had no police lying in wait). The next day, already having been exposed for what he was, he answered another of their stings. My mind would be boggling too if faced with such minds.
Impartiality is an important facet of responsible journalism, but it shouldn’t lead to equivocation for the sake of it. If a TV station had footage of a person declaring their intention to shoot someone and then shooting them, I would think it ridiculous if they said “here is a person accused of first-degree murder”.
In this situation they have a person declaring “I understand you are a child and I am coming to your house and we will have sex”, and then he shows up at that address ready to have sex, I would call it a journalistic disservice to pretend he is there for any other purpose.
I don’t think it’s that simple. They have done two specials with Perverted Justice and no police. They were essentially filming their activities, and taking the opportunity to interview the perverts, a unique journalistic opportunity. Now if the media were to have information that says “person X has announced that at this time and place they will commit a crime”, and they make that info available to the police, you better believe I expect the police to be there waiting.
Not AUTOMATICALLY, but the odds DO go up. Frex, not long ago, I did a contract job for a firm that in a skyscraper mostly filled by Smith Barney. And every morning I went to work with hordes of hotties in pantsuits featuring pants so tight that if they’d had dimes in their back pockets you could have told where they were minted. And they all had fine, tight little asses. Now, it just may be that the finest investment minds Smith Barney could find were housed in bodies that would make a stripper go green with envy, but somehow, I doubt it. A lot of the really lucrative jobs in sales and finance rely heavily on lookism. Alan Greenspan notwithstanding.
I disagree. Newscasters do this every single day, and I’m much more likely to believe what they tell me when they aren’t showing emotions such as smugness or righteousness.
Please use this with an example of something that has a likelihood of happening. And technically, though I hear broadcasters say it all the time, a person is not a “murderer” until they have been convicted of murder. They are the “killer,” or the “shooter,” etc.
Please show me where I said that Hansen should pretend the offender is there for some other purpose.
Actually, it is that simple. And no, it wasn’t “a unique journalistic opportunity.” Dateline made that happen. They did the investigating, set up the sting, and filmed it. It was a good story. I watched with great interest. I have no problems with the first two shows.
If a journalist creates a relationship with a law-enforcement agency where one hand washes the other, can you not see how that relationship could be detrimental to future news stories involving law enforcement? To the accuracy of news stories? To the fairness of news stories? It might be much more difficult for Dateline, for example, to cover a story about corruption within that police department.
It’s not as though the police just got a quick tip that possible sex offenders would be coming out of the house; for an arrest to hold up in a court of law, they’d had to be involved enough to know exactly how the sting was set up, be privvy to all the communications, and know what went down in the house. They can’t arrest people on Dateline’s word that a crime may have been committed. They need evidence, and Dateline is supplying that. It’s a very involved relationship that clearly crosses a line.
What I assumed you meant by this is that he should not be expressing an opinion as to whether the person was there to commit the crime they stated they would be committing there. Apparently I misinterpreted you.
The only other guess I have is that you think Hansen should not be expressing an opnion as to the rightness or wrongness of child molestation while reporting on it. Is that it? If it is, I disagree.
Perhaps in someone’s official stylebook. In my book, if a person is generally known to have killed someone in cold blood, the distinction is between “murderer” and “convicted murderer”. Before his trial, I thought of OJ Simpson as a “suspected murderer”. Afterwards, I think of him as an “unconvicted murderer”.
BTW, in my hypothetical, I put forth someone who ends up on the record as announcing their intent to commit crime, then committing it. Just like the show.
I don’t know what the understanding between NBC and the cops was. It could be that NBC had to get a permit to set up filming, and, seeing the turnout of their previous efforts, the cops might have said “I hope you don’t mind us setting up shop outside”, to which NBC replied “not if you don’t mind us taping it”. I don’t know the details one way or the other. Do you?
Perverted Justice collected the chat data, and presumably are the ones who turned it over to the police. I’m sure the police in the other towns where these Dateline stings were done are taking a lot of heat for having so many unarrested perverts in their neighborhood. If the presence of Dateline cameras causes law enforcement to treat Perverted Justice material with more urgency than they would otherwise, frankly I’m all for their presence.
I admit I’m a little surprised that intent can be a crime. If I decide right now, sitting in my office, that I want to kill that bastard Jim, am I instantly a criminal? Surely I have to ATTEMPT to kill him - commit a criminal act?
Or consider a closer comparison; suppose I decide I woiuld like to sexually assault someone. I decide to go to the mall to see if there’s anyone I could rape. Can I be arrested just for driving to the mall? Gosh, I don’t think so.
I have a personal reason for wanting to make these guys sweat a little. If they didn’t sweat a little at least they were the butt of our jokes.
If I could get away with it I’d meet them face to face. I don’t because I know my actions when we meet would be against the law.
These aren’t people that fell in love with someone a few year younger, these are people willing to mess up a childs life for a few minutes of sex. These assholes should be put in stocks in the town square.
Try this. Have an on-line chat with Jim and inform him you are going to kill him. You will arrive at his house at noon and shoot him with a gun.
What do you think the PD would do in this case?
It’s not like these guys are showing up at this house on a whim. It is premeditated and discussed in a chat and these guys are showing up with booze and condoms expecting to meet and have sex with a minor.
Sorry, posted too soon. the above should have read:
Try this. Have an on-line chat with Jim and inform him you are going to kill him. You will arrive at his house at noon and shoot him with a gun. Then arrive at his house at noon with a gun in your pocket.
Lots of people have personal reasons for wanting to do things. The kiddie-diddlers have personal reasons for wanting to diddle-kiddies.
I worked for a couple years at a residential treatment center for sex offenders. Please, let me assure you that you didn’t make any of them sweat. Being the butt of your “jokes” is also something that wouldn’t likely matter very much to one of them.
All you did was stroke your own ego and get your own squicky jollies by what you did. You aren’t a vigilante. You aren’t a hero. You didn’t do anything good.
If you want to be a vigilante, then I guess you should set aside your yellow-bellied fear of getting caught, don your cape & cowl and get on with it.
This is one of the first things they teach you in J-school. The public is not interested in Chris Hansen’s personal opinion; they are interested in the facts of the story, reported from an unbiased, impartial source. The public can then form its own opinions. We don’t need Hansen to tell us child molestation is bad; we already know that.
Fortunately, the media don’t also use your “book.” Just because you think of them as “murderers” doesn’t make them so. You would believe a public that gets its information from Dateline over a jury informed with the facts? According to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, murder means: “1: the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought.” If someone accuses you of commiting a crime, who determines whether a crime has been commited? A court of law. A person can be arrested on murder charges, can be tried for murder (go on trial to face murder charges), and can be convicted of murder, which would then make him a murderer.
Here’s the example you used: “If a TV station had footage of a person declaring their intention to shoot someone and then shooting them, I would think it ridiculous if they said ‘here is a person accused of first-degree murder.’”
News programs are highly unlikely to show video of what you described. But if they did, until that person is convicted of murder, it isn’t right or fair to call that person “a murderer.” In fact, if you call someone a murderer, and they are not convicted of the crime, they can sue you for slander. The circumstances of the shooting, the person’s state of mind or mental condition, the events leading up to the shooting, all these factors are considered in a court of law, not by you from your living room sofa with about 3 percent of the facts. OJ is a killer, and while I do believe he killed her, I won’t call him a murderer, and neither should media professionals. What you choose to call him is your business.
Fortunately, I’m not privvy to inside information at Dateline, but I think you are missing the point, and part of my last post: It’s not as though the police just got a quick tip that possible sex offenders would be coming out of the house; for an arrest to hold up in a court of law, they’d had to be involved enough to know exactly how the sting was set up, be privvy to all the communications, and know what went down in the house. They can’t arrest people on Dateline’s word that a crime may have been committed. They need evidence, and Dateline is supplying that. It’s a very involved relationship that clearly crosses a line.
"Volunteers also take part in what PeeJ calls “media busts,” where men are invited to a house with the promise of a sexual encounter with a minor. When the man arrives, he is greeted by a local television news reporter. Peej teamed up with Dateline NBC in New York in November 2004 to conduct a large sting operation, or “group media bust,” in which Dateline rented a house and wired it with hidden cameras, while PeeJ volunteers posed as minors in chat rooms, telling men who approached them that they were home alone. “Within hours there were men literally lining up at our door,” Dateline reported. In two-and-a-half days, 18 men showed up at the house after making a date with a PeeJ volunteer.