Dateline: To Kill a Predator

[Ian David]

Well, Dateline: you finally got what you wanted - a live execution, with cameras rolling. Are you satisfied? A man is dead, technically by his own hand: Louis Conradt, an assistant district attorney in a small Texas town, about to be arrested for chatting online with and planning to meet a minor (he thought) for sex. He did not actually leave his house, but he did talk about it online, and in Texas that's enough to constitute a crime. So the cops descend on his bungalow with Dateline in tow, and they get the goods, if not the guy: a loud bang echoes from inside the house as their cameras approach. Moments later, Conradt is wheeled out on a stretcher, his bloody hair waving in the breeze.

In that moment, the immensely popular "To Catch A Predator" series - until now a unique brand of soft-core entrapment porn - crossed a line, not merely filming reality, but creating it. For over a year, the show has been playing cop, judge, jury, and jailer; now, without blinking, it has assumed the role of executioner. And in doing so it joins Nancy Grace and Sally Jesse Raphael in the pantheon of shows that pushes people to the brink, and then over it. Indeed, it one-ups those shows, which didn't have the cameras on when the trigger was pulled. Of course, the Dateline team is appropriately mortified: the suicide was "a devastating tragedy, a shock to all of us," as host Chris Hansen solemnly put it. I'm sure it was.

But to what end? Are children across America actually safer because of this nationwide clean-sweep of sex-hungry "predators"? Because a man who chatted about illegal sex online is now dead? The slick and insufferably self-righteous Hansen pleads innocence. We'll never know, he says, if Conradt knew the Dateline cameras were waiting outside his door. Perhaps not, but I doubt they really care. After all, they got their footage. To the show's credit, it does give five seconds of air time to the deceased's sister, who blames an "out-of-control reality show" and says she will never think of her brother's death as a suicide.

If you have not yet had the pleasure of catching this juggernaut - and make no mistake, pleasure, both thwarted and fulfilled, is a central element of the show - it relies on a simple conceit: steer an ancient law-enforcement technique - the sting - into the depths of internet sex. The result? Fish in a barrel, every time.

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jesse-wegman/dateline-to-kill-a-preda_b_41911.html

[rsr1771]

1. His fault, not Datelines...

First of all, soliciting a minor for sex is illegal in about every state-whether it's face to face or by computer. If this guy was encouraging a minor to meet him for sex then he's a criminal and should be put away. Secondly, Dateline did not kill him or make him try to have sex with minors. All of this is on the dead guy, not Dateline.

[originalpckelly]

2. Yeah, whateva.

Seriously, the sicko perv shot himself because he knew his life would be ruined.

[Tin Man]

3. TCAP serves the public good

...if TCAP forces creeps think twice about pursuing our children, then it serves the public good. And in that respect, TCAP is more effective with bigger ratings. So if the show plays-up the drama, so be it.

And FWIW, I'm sorry the guy elected to kill himself, but that was purely his choice alone.

[Raine]

4. I'll shed no tears

for a child predator who could have turned himself in but didn't have the guts to 'face the music'. x(

[high density]

5. The show seems almost as sick as the people they're catching IMHO

It's like this weird corporate circle jerk with law enforcement. "Cops" is one thing where we see unscripted stuff happening to people who have done stupid things. On the other hand, Dateline and Perverted Justice are engineering these situations with decoys that talk about sex. I have no pity for the sickos on the show, nor do I want to defend them, but the synergy going on here between NBC and law enforcement does concern me.