5/9/2023 0 Comments Dateline to catch a predatorI think we evolve and get smarter every time we do it. When you decided to reboot the stings, were there plans for how to do things differently given what happened? Of course, you don’t want anybody to hurt themselves. I don’t know if he had a closet life, I don’t know what was going on. He knew he’d face 10 years in prison for each image. He tried to get them off the hard drives, and he couldn’t. What he did know was that police officers were knocking on his door, and he had child pornography on his computer. I don’t think there is any way he could have known it was Chris Hansen and Dateline outside. He didn’t show up at the house, the police made the decision to issue a warrant. There was a settlement in that case, so I’m somewhat limited in what I can say. As long as you tell people exactly what you’re doing, they can decide whether they want to watch it.ĭid the 2006 suicide lead to questions about whether you went too far? If some retired reporter from the Houston Chronicle with his glasses down his nose wants to take me to task, that’s fine. We’ve been absolutely transparent about our methodology - who the decoys are, where the police are, etc. We try to work it the best way for justice. If the police ask us a question, we answer. I know I’ve been taken to task by the Poynter Institute and some old-line journalists, but I think we had to evolve into what was the right thing to do. I think it would be socially irresponsible and somewhat dangerous. We would not do it without law enforcement and prosecutors being involved. You work closely with law enforcement, but how do you avoid being seen as ‘too close’ to them? And what do you make of criticism that what you do isn’t really journalism? Three, it takes you into a world you wouldn’t normally see.Ĭhris Hansen, the host of "Crime Watch Daily." Warner Brothers One, who doesn’t want to go after child predators? Two, it’s compelling television. As generations of college kids graduated and watched it, they thought it was brand new. Even when we stopped shooting new investigations, MSNBC ran the old ones. There was a long gap in which you didn’t do these stings, but many encouraged you to return to them. The following has been edited for length and clarity. Predator.” The segment premiered in September on “Crime Watch Daily,” a show Hansen hosts that runs on weekdays, syndicated on local channels throughout the country. His contract was not renewed in 2013, and he went on to host “Killer Instinct,” a show on Investigation Discovery.īut fans kept asking him to bring back the stings, and last year Hansen mounted a Kickstarter campaign, raising nearly $90,000 for a reboot called “Hansen vs. He battled tabloid stories of an extramarital affair. Hansen’s last segment aired in late 2007. The network was sued for $105 million and settled out of court. Then, in 2006, one of those men committed suicide. The mark would arrive at a camera-rigged decoy house, where Hansen would emerge with his signature line: “Why don’t you have a seat?” After a brief, squirmy interview, police would swoop in for an arrest. In 2004, NBC reporter Chris Hansen began leading stings in which “children” - played by adult actors - invited men to meet them for sexual encounters.
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