As the "Predator" stings expanded in number and scope and the ratings for the show climbed higher, more and more people - some of them within NBC - began to question whether Dateline's methods were "erasing lines that even an increasingly tabloid newsmagazine should respect."1 Deceiving sources to report a story should make any good journalist uneasy. "Journalists should be very reluctant to deceive," said Al Tomkins of Poynter. "It should be the last resort, not the first. And it ought to be rare."14 Again, if potential sources saw journalists as ready and willing to dupe and delude in order to get a story, no one would be comfortable giving information to reporters.
Most journalists agree deceptive reporting is only acceptable in cases where there is no other reasonable way to get an important story the public needs to hear. Dateline is under fire because most observers maintain there are other ways to do a story about underage sex solicitation on the Internet. "Predator" critics worry the show will spawn spin-offs featuring news bureaus and police squads working together to nab people for "less publicly annoying" offenses.5
The Dateline sting in Murphy, Texas, caught the Rockwall County District Attorney Louis W. Conradt Jr., in a sexually explicit chat with a minor. Conradt did not show up to the Dateline undercover house, but under Texas law, it is a second degree felony to have lewd communications with someone under the age of 14, even if no contact takes place. When police attempted to serve Conradt with a search warrant at his home, Conradt shot and killed himself with the Dateline cameras rolling on his front lawn.1 The criminal district attorney of Rockwall County, Galen Ray Sumrow, believes evidence in the Conradt case was badly botched. There were problems with the search warrant that Sumrow says would have gotten the evidence seized during the search thrown out of court. Sumrow thinks the suicide could have been prevented if police had confronted Conradt at work the next day. Sumrow points out the information regarding Conradt's chat was given to police by PeeJ volunteers just hours before they went to arrest him. Sumrow suspects the deadline pressure of reality TV dictated the timing of the sting, but Dateline denies they were in a hurry the day of Conradt's suicide.1 Conradt's sister, Patricia, holds Dateline responsible for her brother's death. "I will never consider my brother's death a suicide," she said. "It was an act precipitated by the rush to grab headlines where there was no evidence that there was any emergency other than to line the pockets of an out of control group and a TV show pressed for ratings and a deadline."1
Dateline's executive producer, David Corvo, said the show had no intention of changing its policy or revising its tactics after Conradt's suicide. Corvo says there is no evidence to suggest Conradt knew the Dateline cameras were present, despite witnesses' accounts that a news crew had been posted up on the block for hours beforehand.1 Corvo continued to defend the show as a new kind of enterprise journalism, one suited to the Internet age and in the interest of the public good. Corvo said it is impossible to predict all the consequences of the show. "You have to let the chips fall where they may."1