NBC Settles Dateline Predator Lawsuit Over Prosecutor’s Death

After a stinging opinion by U.S. District Judge Denny Chin in February, NBC has thrown in the towel on its defense of “Dateline NBC: To Catch A Predator” in the suicide of a former prosecutor. Louis William Conradt Jr. shot himself after the program accused him of engaging in sexually explicit chats with an adult posing as a child. The program then allegedly pushed for his arrest when he failed to show up at a sting operation.

Conradt’s suicide raised a recurring question over the liability of reality based television shows and talk shows for violence or suicide. For a prior column, click here.

NBC employees swarmed over his house to confront him and pushed for his arrest. Notably, the lawsuit said that a police officer at the scene of the shooting told a Dateline producer: “That’ll make good TV.”

click here.

In February, Judge Chin found that a jury could find that NBC “crossed the line from responsible journalism to irresponsible and reckless intrusion into law enforcement.”

The Supreme Court has taken a harsh view of police coordinating with reality shows that result in unreasonable searches or accidents,

For the full story, click here.