"Dateline" Desperately Needs Balance

	posted by Matt on 09:23 AM June 1st, 2006
	NBC could use some education on the topic of sexual predation. Take a look at Dateline's main page and see how they are dealing with the issue of Internet predators. In case anyone has been following this series, they are catching men who make illicit contact with supposed underage girls for sexual encounters, and then when they show up, they are getting interviewed by Dateline and then arrested by local police. This is a good thing and NBC should be commended for having the courage to go this far in addressing this sort of problem. Where NBC is failing is in how they are not reporting in a balanced fashion. Next week's episode promises to review the Mary Kay Letourneau case and all but makes it out to be a matter of love-denied-by-evil-society. The reality contrasts sharply with the perception. Feel free to send them an email from their web form at the lower center portion of the series' home page.

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unbelievable (Score:1) by blaze4metal on 11:22 AM June 1st, 2006 EST (#1) Teen boys are not seen as victims but as developing young men who are "experimenting" with their sexuality, Hislop said. Well it's rape when it's under 18 no matter what the consentment is. Older women should know better just as older men should. I am sick of excuses by the feminized-media.

Re:unbelievable (Score:1) by Demonspawn on 04:10 PM June 1st, 2006 EST (#2) Depends on where you live. Check this site. It's strange that when I mention I know that the age of consent is 16 in my state, I get funny looks. I've actually ran a psuso-experiment, the differences in replies that I get when I mention "I know because I have a son" are much much different from "I know because I have a daughter" (I have both, actually.) --Demonspawn

Re:unbelievable... fem slant on teacher predators (Score:2) by Roy on 04:21 PM June 1st, 2006 EST (#3) Teachers' Pets? Are teachers who sleep with boys getting off? By William Saletan http://www.slate.com/id/2134158 "At first glance, the sentences look biased. The men got an average of more than 11 years; the women got less than two. But compare the crimes, and the story gets more complicated. Most of the men molested victims younger than 15; most of the women didn't.* Half the men molested multiple victims; only three of the women did. Ten men on the list had multiple victims, including victims younger than 16. These men earned an average sentence of more than 17 years, drastically inflating the average." If anyone can make sense of this article and post your conclusions, it would be appreciated. At one point the author argues that female sexual predators get lighter sentences becasue they were "in love" with their boy-victims. Whereas male sexual predators merely objectify their targets. I'm confused. I thought rape was rape, despite the romance...

It's all smoke and mirrors (Score:2) by Rand T. on 04:17 AM June 2nd, 2006 EST (#4) He admits that his article search consisted of the key word "sexual assault" -- we all know how many times the media describe male students as having been "sexually assaulted" by female teachers. He cherry picks and distorts his statistics. The Department of Justice statistics on rape and sexual assaults have nothing to do with statutory rape (not only that, but the federal definition of "rape" is sexual coercion of a *female*.) I looked up the review he cites for "80 percent to 96 percent of offenders were male." It actually says that 57-96% of offenders were male, with the former being based on studies of statistically representative interviews of students, whereas the latter are based on: 1. "educators investigated for educator sexual misconduct" ("investigated" could mean false accusation), 2. A survey of child care workers in Yorkshire, England about their sexual interest in children, 3. analysis of cases in newspapers (probably using "rape" or "sexual assault" as key word search). I wouldn't rely too much on this article. It seems to be pure propaganda with the typical distortions and deceptions that go with the territory.

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