Journalists Acting Badly
Mark Halprin, Chris Hansen
Rough day for a pair of high profile media people. NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” correspondent has been caught on camera allegedly engaged in an affair with a mistress 20 years his junior. Political author and analyst, Mark Halprin gets suspended for a vulgar on-air reference to the President.
Chris Hansen, whose “Predator” segments on NBC’s Dateline have been widely criticized for questionable ethical practices, apparently has some ‘splainin’ to do, at the very least, to his 54 year-old wife and two kids. I’m thinking here that he may have just lost the moral high ground.
The sordid details uncovered by no less than the National Enquirer, can be found here .
An example of the kind of ethical questions that have been swirling around the “Predator” segments is here .
As for current Time magazine political guru/former ABC News Political Director/MSNBC contributor, Mark Halprin- it was an unfortunate use of a couple of words on the Morning Joe show that got him in hot water.
Here’s how TV Newser explains the incident:
It wasn’t off the cuff. In fact, Halperin asked if the control room had the “7-second delay button” ready. Apparently, they didn’t because this is what went out over the air:
“I thought he was kind of a dick yesterday,” said Halperin, referring to Obama’s “posturing” during his news conference.
Joe Scarborough jumped in saying: “Delay that. Delay that. What are you doing? I can’t believe … I was joking. Don’t do that. Did we delay that? Did that work?”
“I hit it. I hope it worked,” said Alex, the producer, from the control room.
The conversation with Joe, Mika, Willie and Harold Ford Jr. continued for another 10 minutes, as the show tried to figure out if the delay, where Halperin’s use of the word would be ‘bleeped,’ had worked.
It didn’t.
17 minutes after he said it, Halperin apologized: “Joking aside, this is an absolute apology. I became part of the joke. It’s no excuse. I shouldn’t have said it. I apologize to the president and the viewers who heard me say that.”
Halprin has been indefinitely suspended by MSNBC and has since issued a lengthier apology in which he admits he deserves the suspension.
All in all, a special summer day in which the importance of the 7-second delay and control of the middle-aged libido have been underscored for all.
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Garcia Media Life 
This would have made the Hansen story even more laughable:
1. Journalist from another network with secret hidden camera crew shows up at Hansen’s secret house posing as a predator.
2. Journalist waits for Hansen to reveal his NBC secret camera crew and say, “I’m Chris Hansen with NBC. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
3. Journalist reveals his own other network secret camera crew and says, “Oh, really? Well, I’m (insert journalist name here) with (insert other network name here). Do YOU have anything to say for YOURSELF???”
Two secret camera crews are left pointing cameras at each other as Hansen tries to run out the door, where he is wrestled to the ground.
Yes, I know Hansen didn’t do anything illegal, but still…….
You’re killing me! How funny would that be? I sure hope you have a blog because you have a highly refined sense of the absurd and I mean that as an absolute compliment 🙂
Seems like absurdity is in great supply these days, so you’re in no danger of running out of material on which to comment. No blog for me, but I always look forward to your “assorted musings!”