Dateline's To Catch A Predator With Chris Hansen Is Trash Television
HERE'S WHAT I THINK
Dateline's To Catch A Predator With Chris Hansen Is Trash Television
Let me start by saying that I think that sexual predators should be stopped and that I believe that trying to lure an under aged person to meet for a sexual encounter is absolutely wrong and disgusting. However, Chris Hansen and Dateline go too far with their series To Catch A Predator.
I feel that To Catch A Predator, which works with underground online watch group Perverted Justice, may have been worthy of Datelines attention for one or two episodes to show some light on the problem of sexual predators on the Internet. However, doing it again and again seems tedious and sleazy. There certainly is an element of entrapment that I find obvious about this program.
Another reason I find this show disgusting is the sensational element of the show. While I do not have any sympathy of the men on the show for their predatory habits, I do feel for their exploitation for good TV ratings. The men are trapped with a "deer in the headlights" look as they are busted and realize that their lives as they know it have forever been changed.
While the program hopefully may have stopped some predators before they could strike, it is also at least partially responsible in at least one suicide and scores of lives and families of the men caught on the show being torn apart.
YOUR TURN!
Is
