Even though Primetime, directed by Lance Oppenheim and starring Robert Pattinson, will shine a light on the phenomenon that was the reality television series To Catch a Predator, nothing compares to experiencing it in real time. Hosted by Chris Hansen, To Catch a Predator became a popular staple of the news magazine program Dateline NBC and truly exposed the ugliness of adult men attempting to engage in sexual activity with minors. It’s an ugliness that somebody should expose, but To Catch a Predator, in its own right, dabbled in ugliness.
The lines became blurred between “doing the right thing” and producing a television show that generated ratings. Lines were crossed, ethical and legal questions came into play, and it really called into question the difference between entertainment and legit journalism. In essence, the phenomenon soon became a predator that had to be held to the fire of accountability.
To Catch a Predator began as segments in 2004 featured on Dateline NBC called Dangerous Web, before becoming To Catch a Predator. The production ran for four years and 20 episodes, becoming Dateline’s most popular segment. The concept saw host Chris Hansen confronting adult men arriving at a home to have sex with a minor, but it was all set up as a sting. Hidden cameras caught the action, and the men, who were usually arrested as a result of their actions, were actually invited there by adults impersonating minors online to, as the title says, catch a predator.
The watchdog group Perverted-Justice conducted 12 undercover sting operations with the production, and by the third operation, law enforcement became involved, resulting in the arrests of the men they caught. In the first installment alone, authorities caught 18 men during a two-and-a-half-day sting operation.
At its peak, during a sting operation in Mira Loma, California, authorities caught 41 men over three days. It all seemed like something that was being done to expose the online activities of grown men seeking out minors. Still, the series began to receive mixed responses due to its tone, which sometimes played the exposures like a joke, and the legal and ethical concerns surrounding the sting operations, more pointedly, whether they violated any entrapment laws. There was also the issue of Hansen himself, who, as the show grew in popularity, became a fixture on late-night television and other entertainment programs as the face of the series. Turning something so sordid into celebrity status began to feel wrong.
Making News Vs. Reporting News
To Catch a Predator was really a breed of “gotcha journalism.” Even though the show’s idea was likely rooted in something meant to do well, the series became known more for making news than reporting it. As To Catch a Predator grew in popularity, its ratings rose, and naysayers began to question whether the show was doing its job for the greater good or just becoming more popular in the pop culture zeitgeist.
The blurring of lines always seemed to be an issue. As a news organization, were Dateline and To Catch a Predator operating as a news outlet or as a form of law enforcement? Even though Dateline NBC left all legal punishment of the men caught to law enforcement officials and prosecutors, the series began to garner, in some capacity, the men caught via the sting operations because their exposures on national television felt like a punishment (that many would say they deserved), but the ethical side of it came down to the opinion that the media had no right to inflict it, especially as the show became more about entertainment and ratings, rather than bringing criminals to justice. Brian Montopoli of CBS News was extremely critical of the series for this reason and questioned NBC’s intentions in producing the show.
“But NBC is first and foremost a business, and the producers’ motives are not simply altruistic. Perhaps I’m being cynical, but I find it telling that this program has been remade and rerun so often. You could argue that NBC is just making sure as many people as possible are aware predators are out there, but is it too much to think that a little thing called “ratings” might play a part as well?”
The way To Catch a Predator was operated and packaged for the public, in a sense, began to feel predatory. Television critic Charlie Brooker discussed the show’s ethics around how they chose adult actors to portray minors. Even though he didn’t state this audition process as fact, there’s something to be said about what could’ve been going on behind the scenes. Brooker said, “Presumably someone at To Catch a Predator HQ sat down with a bunch of audition tapes and spooled through it, trying to find a sexy 18-year-old who could pass for 13. They’ll have stared at a girl after girl, umming and ahhing over their chest sizes, until they found just the right one. And like I say, she’s hot. But if you fancy her, you’re a pedophile.”
Gathering Intelligence Vs. Entrapment
Another criticism of To Catch a Predator was that the series lured its subjects into the sting operation in ways many defense attorneys believed could amount to entrapment. Many of these men could use that as a legal defense, arguing that they were enticed to commit a crime they otherwise would not have committed. If that defense worked for the men caught on the show, some of them could be back on the streets and free to commit the crime again. Would Dateline NBC care about that after the episode was a rating bonanza? Would they follow up?
Dateline NBC and To Catch a Predator utilized the watchdog group Perverted-Justice, a third-party organization that investigated, identified, and publicized the actions of adults who used chat rooms and other social media to solicit sexual conversations and in-person encounters with minors. The organization has stated that they took all proper precautions during their time with To Catch a Predator to avoid a potential entrapment defense, most notably stating that their volunteers never initiated lewd conduct, conversations, or talks of sexual in-person meetings. However, NBC’s own Stone Phillips, also a Dateline anchor, publicly pushed back on this. Phillips said, “In many cases, the decoy is the first to bring up the subject of sex,” but he defended the tactic, in a sense, by saying it was a form of enticement and not entrapment, going on to say, “Once the hook is baited, the fish jump and run with it like you wouldn’t believe.”
Operations run by the show in conjunction with Perverted-Justice have used the entrapment defense; in some cases, it was successful, while in others, it wasn’t. A sting operation was conducted with the third-party organization and the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department while the adult male thought he was engaging with a 12-year-old girl. The male used the entrapment defense, and the court rejected it because it found no evidence that Perverted-Justice acted as a law enforcement agency and that the male initiated contact with the minor. In contrast, in 2011, a man who appeared on the show had his charges dismissed because the trial judge found no proof that he intended to commit a crime. When making their decision, the court pointed to the tactics used by Perverted-Justice as a form of entrapment and said their methods lacked credibility.
The Blurred Lines of Financial Gain
Perverted-Justice’s involvement with Dateline NBC was further called into question when, during a fourth investigation and sting operation for To Catch a Predator, Dateline began paying them a consultant’s fee for their work. The fee, said to be upwards of $100,000 per episode, put Perverted-Justice in a position to make significant financial gain moving forward, which creates a conflict of interest for an organization that claimed to run on the backs of volunteers and their work.
In a sense, Perverted-Justice, who put these stings in motion for the show, was viewed as a news source, and if Dateline began paying them, it would be an act in journalism that is extremely frowned upon because financial incentives can sway stories. Perverted-Justice, for their part, claimed that their staff was kept separate from the Dateline staff to avoid any legal issues down the road. During sting operations, Perverted-Justice claimed their people were never in the house where meetings were arranged and were instead in nearby locations, offsite, monitoring the events. All video and chats were reportedly transmitted directly to the proper officials because they wanted to avoid any ethical concerns regarding media and law enforcement and, most importantly, this separated them further from Dateline as a news organization because how could there be a conflict of interest if they weren’t speaking to Dateline staff during stings?
That said, the conflict-of-interest issue reportedly led to 23 cases in Collin County, Texas, going unprosecuted. During one May 2007 sting addressed by District Attorney John Roach, he questioned the business practices between Dateline and Perverted-Justice. Roach said, “What is exactly the deal between the City of Murphy and NBC? What is the deal between NBC and Perverted-Justice? Who’s getting paid what? Who has an axe to grind?”
To Catch a Predator Leads To a High-Profile Suicide
To Catch a Predator truly came under fire in the media following the suicide of Bill Conradt, an assistant district attorney in Kaufman County, Texas. Although the sting began like so many others, how it unfolded after the initial encounter put the series under a major microscope, along with how law enforcement, entangled with the media, handled the situation.
To Catch a Predator, with the aid of Perverted-Justice, conducted a sting in Murphy, Texas, where 25 men arrived at the location on Mandeville Drive over four days, while additional suspects did not arrive. Among these additional subjects was assistant district attorney Conradt, who chatted and exchanged pictures with a Perverted-Justice volunteer posing as a 13-year-old boy. After Conradt didn’t show up at the sting location, local police officials and NBC tracked Conradt to his home, with the latter entering the house with a full camera crew as police tried to serve him with a warrant. Conradt ultimately shot himself as the police and NBC crew forced entry into his home.
The conduct of NBC and law enforcement was heavily criticized by local residents, particularly how deploying themselves onto Conradt’s home felt more like generating ratings for salacious TV rather than catching someone who was engaging inappropriately with a minor. NBC aired the investigation on February 12 and 20, 2007, but consequences soon followed as the sting was investigated further. 20/20, a rival news program on ABC, aired an investigative report and interviewed two former police detectives who claimed that the decision to go to Conradt’s home to arrest him was made by To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen. Although NBC denied this, the two police detectives claimed the outlet intended to confront the assistant district attorney on camera.
A lawsuit soon followed and was initiated by Conradt’s sister, Patricia Conradt, who sued NBC Universal for $105 million, stating that police raided her brother’s home at the request of the outlet for the sake of television. Even though most of her claims were dismissed by federal judge Denny Chin, he did believe that Conradt had a considerable chance of proving that NBC pressured law enforcement to breach her brother’s home using unreasonable tactics for the sake of entertainment, which resulted in “a substantial risk of suicide or other harm.” Conradt and NBC Universal ultimately settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.
The Issue of Chris Hansen
In addition to the show’s tactics, Hansen also faced criticism as To Catch a Predator grew in popularity. Some argued that he enjoyed the celebrity status that came with being the host, so to speak, of the series, and that it didn’t mesh well with the seriousness of the crimes they were supposed to be reporting on and exposing.
NBC seemed to lose the point of To Catch a Predator, and some believed Hansen lost sight of it too. At the height of its popularity, Hansen made business-related moves around the series. The show spawned three Tuesday night spin-offs, with Hansen hosting To Catch a Con Man and To Catch an I.D. Thief. He also released a book in 2007 called To Catch a Predator: Protecting Your Kids from Online Enemies Already in Your Home, which found him promoting himself even more on just about any show or news program that would have him. It began to rub people the wrong way that Hansen seemed to be profiting in some way off of these salacious crimes. Was his heart in the right place? He would probably say so, but dollar signs also have a way of influencing decisions.
Hansen was also criticized for his ego and self-righteous attitude. As his celebrity profile rose, his ego came into play, and he took a lot of jabs for seeking personal fame and recognition over reporting news for the sake of truth and justice. Hansen was also criticized for his self-righteous attitude on camera and heavy moralizing, which was thrown in his face even more when he was fired from NBC in 2013 amid allegations of workplace controversies and an affair. All of this ended a tenure with NBC that lasted 20 years.
The Cancellation of To Catch a Predator
To Catch a Predator was ultimately canceled in 2008, most notably due to the 2006 suicide of assistant district attorney Bill Conradt. The show’s conduct and law enforcement’s actions led to so much public scrutiny that the network could no longer support it. NBC decided not to produce more episodes because costs mounted due to the lawsuit, and public opinion began to turn against the series.
For his part, Hansen has said the show was canceled because it ran its course, but many believe his ego would never let him admit the series fell apart because its own ethics were seriously called into question. After leaving NBC, Hansen kept a variation of the show going in 2016 with Hansen vs. Predator, which aired as a segment on Crime Watch Dailythat Hansen also hosted. It was then followed by Takedown with Chris Hansen in 2022, which still airs on the TruBlu streaming network.
It’s hard to say if To Catch a Predator has a legacy to speak of today. It has spawned spin-offs in other countries and has been spoofed by YouTube content creators who find comedic value in its execution. It also led to the new film Primetime, made for entertainment but also to show the dark side of how these programs are produced and packaged. To Catch a Predator may have begun as a good thing, but it morphed into something else. It shows that even something meant to expose criminals can engage in practices that may seem unsavory in the name of criminal justice.
Primetime opens in theaters nationwide this Friday.
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