Internet predators were once limited to using only chat rooms on AOL as their method of communication with the underaged; however, now there are a mulitude of ways to come in contact with them. Facebook, MySpace, AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger: all types of online connections where kids and young teens give out their personal information. Some of it can fall into the wrong hands of the predators who, in turn, use that information as their weapon.
Up until recently, the internet form of media was providing these dangerous connections. The only way to stay safe from these predators was to remind one's kids to keep all of the important information private while taking part in things such as MySpace. However, now the media is actually playing the role of preventing and catching these predators. "Perverted Justice", a group of dedicated people who have made it their job to work with law enforcement officers and others to lure these predators into arrest. A few years ago, "Perverted Justice" teamed up with Dateline NBC's "To Catch a Predator". Since then, trained volunteers have been luring would-be pedofiles by posing as children of 13 or 14 years old and talking to them in chat rooms. During the chat, the predator is told to come to the "child's" house (which is really surrounded by police officers and hidden cameras). Once they arrive, they are confronted by Dateline NBC's host, Chris Hansen, and then later by the cops outside to be arrested.
Why not leave all of this work tracking down internet predators to the cops themself? What role is the media really playing--are they helping or hurting this effort? I see this effort as a sort of cycle: the media (Facebook, MySpace, online journals) gave kids the freedom to put out tehir personal information without warning them of the potential dangers that could arise, and now the media is trying to clean that up. I would like to further investigate these questions and ideas in my "Take Charge" Assignment.

Articles found to be useful so far:
The story of Louis Condrat and his suicide afterbeing convicted and all of the other articles questioning the actual effect of "To Catch a Predator" on perverted-justice.com.

1st try