by TChris

In their quest for ratings, it has become popular for TV news programs to use reporters posing as teenage girls in internet chatrooms to lure men to locations with the promise of sex, only to embarrass them on camera with the news that they haven't been chatting with a teenager (or even a girl) at all. These televised "sting" operations copy a procedure that law enforcement agencies have been using for some time. But the law enforcement agencies point out that good TV isn't necessarily good policy.

FBI spokeswoman Linda Vizi said the stings don't help law enforcement because evidence isn't collected in a legal way. Other law enforcement officials have said the "stings" can compromise real investigations.

Tom Bivins, a University of Oregon professor of media ethics, asks whether it is "necessary to entrap these people to get the story" rather than simply reporting that a problem exists. Bivins says, "Once you get involved, you become part of the story instead of reporting the story."

Courts have upheld convictions of attempted sexual assault of a child even when the "child" is a middle aged, balding FBI agent. Using that same dubious logic, isn't a TV station guilty of aiding and abetting an attempt to sexually assault a "child" when it invites a man to have sex with one?