Dateline NBC: Entrapment Again?
August 6, 2007Why people hate reporters: a Dateline NBC producer “parachutes in” to the DEFCON hacker’s convention to attempt to entrap a hacker (any hacker) doing something (anything) illegal so the Feds in attendence can arrest them.
Why? So the “people in Kansas” as she so patronizingly describes her own audience can see what ‘illegal stuff’ goes down at DEFCON via the ol’ hidden camera trick.
The reporter (Michelle Madigan, to name the guilty) reportedly declined four requests to register as press, and actually told a DEFCON staffer that she was going to the bathroom to get her hidden camera ready!
Unfortunately, all the coverage I’ve seen of this horrendous example of “gotcha” journalism has been on technology blogs; Howie Kurtz , Editor and Publisher other media mavens don’t often venture into the technology ghetto.
She’s , (and apparently, according to this , Dateline didn’t even send any back-up to protect her, unlike their anti-predator campaign) but it won’t stop NBC’s Dateline, home of the “online predator” entrapment that led to a man’s suicide (without benefit of trial or conviction) and flaming faked truck explosions.