NBC network says pedophile reports perform public service
By DAVID BAUDER
AP
NEW YORK (AP) - NBC acknowledged Monday that it had paid an
organization to set up a pedophile sting operation in Ohio for a
"Dateline NBC" story, saying it was performing a public service.
Seventeen men were arrested in March as part of the sting. They were
accused of looking for sex with minors after communicating with people
posing as juveniles on the Internet, and caught when they came to a
home in rural western Ohio.
NBC arranged the operation, the fourth in its ongoing "To Catch a
Predator" series on "Dateline NBC," with an organization called
Perverted Justice that tries to ensnare pedophiles. NBC would not
comment on how much it paid, although the Washington Post reported it
was at least $100,000 (82,650). The arrangement was first reported in
the Dayton Daily News.
"There's no question it's a unique situation and one we talked about a
lot internally," said David Corvo, executive producer of "Dateline
NBC." "But this is an Internet crime, a new form of crime in America,
and we're trying to find new ways of covering it."
Perverted Justice volunteers were paid for expenses during the first
two stings, but NBC felt the company deserved to be paid for helping
set up the more involved operation in Ohio, Corvo said.
With NBC's cooperation, the volunteers were briefly sworn in as
deputies with the Darke County sheriff's office. Corvo described that
as a legal quirk in Ohio.
The arrangement raises several ethical questions, including whether the
magnitude of the problem was worth the attention paid to it by law
enforcement in Ohio, said Bob Steele, a senior journalism-ethics
faculty member at the Poynter Institute.
"If the journalist was paying someone for their information,
cooperation and participation, the payment may taint the reliability of
the story and the truth being sought," Steele said. "Credibility is
affected. Some would even put the term `checkbook journalism' on this
matter."
Corvo said it is not the same as paying a source. Perverted Justice was
working as an NBC consultant, in much the same way that NBC paid a
company for use of its hidden-camera technology for the story, he said.
"We think the system we set up has allowed us to keep our journalistic
standards as well as perform a public service," Corvo said. NBC will
disclose to viewers the fee paid to Perverted Justice, he said.
Asked whether a story about Internet pedophiles could just as easily be
told without the sting, Corvo said it was necessary to illustrate the
problem for television.
A request for comment from Perverted Justice on Monday received no
response.
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