Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Esquire and "To Catch a Predator"

I dare you to start reading this and not get utterly sucked into the story.

http://www.esquire.com/features/predator0907

It's Esquire magazine's lead feature on NBC's Dateline series called "To Catch a Predator," in which they set up stings for pedophiles.

So many media ethics angles here. Where would you like to begin?

1 comment:

Amy said...

Well, that left a bad taste in my mouth. Kudos to the author, though. Not everyone could write a story engaging enough to keep reading while knowing how it's going to end.

Ah, but Dateline.... This is right up their alley. They're like Jerry Springer for prime time. Anyway--

Where to begin? I think genuine journalism would have been reporters following a police investigation rather than being instigators and inviting police to join in. They're not reporting news, they're creating something to report on, and they're doing it in a sensational fashion. It certainly goes beyond "watchdog."