Chris Hansen: Difference between revisions
No edit summary |
|||
| Line 5: | Line 5: | ||
{{Infobox actor television |
{{Infobox actor television |
||
|name = Chris Hansen |
|name = Chris Hansen |
||
|image = Chris_Hansen.jpg |
<!-- Commented out because image was deleted: |image = Chris_Hansen.jpg --> |
||
|birthname = Christopher Edward Hansen |
|birthname = Christopher Edward Hansen |
||
|birthdate = {{birth date and age|1959|3|26}} |
|birthdate = {{birth date and age|1959|3|26}} |
||
Revision as of 03:19, 8 February 2008
 | This article may be in need of reorganization to comply with Wikipedia's layout guidelines. (August 2007) |
 |
Template:Infobox actor television
Christopher Edward Hansen (born March 26, 1959) is an American television journalist best known for his work on the Dateline NBC television segment To Catch a Predator. These investigations revolve around catching Internet sex predators using a sting operation.
In March 2007, Hansen's book To Catch a Predator: Protecting Your Kids from Online Enemies Already in Your Home was released in the American market amid generally positive reviews.
Hansen has made recent appearances on The Today Show, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Scarborough Country, The Glenn Beck Program, and the The Opie and Anthony Radio Show.
On January 9, 2007, Hansen appeared on the BET news series American Gangster. The special, which was hosted by actor Ving Rhames, focused on Detroit drug lords The Chambers Brothers. Hansen gave insight into the lives of the brothers based on the reporting he had done on them in the 1980s and 1990s as a reporter for NBC affiliate WDIV (Channel 4).
He currently resides in Stamford, Connecticut.
Early career
After graduating from Michigan State University's College of Communications, Hansen was an anchor and investigative reporter for the NBC affiliate, WDIV-TV, in Detroit, Mich, from 1988 to 1993.
To Catch a Predator
In its first two weeks on the market, Hansen's book To Catch a Predator was consistently in the top 1000 on Amazon.com's bestsellers list.
In addition, the popularity of Hansen's online sexual predator investigations has spawned a number of internet video parodies of To Catch a Predator and of Hansen himself. Capitalizing on the success of Hansen and his Predator investigations, Dateline NBC recently created three Tuesday night spin-offs of its original concept, the first two of which featured Hansen as the reporter. The shows reported on by Hansen were called To Catch a Con Man and To Catch an I.D. Thief, and both had title cards similar in design to that which has been used in the most recent Predator investigations and on Hansen's new book. Continuing the momentum that sparked To Catch a Predator, Hansen and Dateline widely promoted the spin-offs as featuring "a different kind of predator."
Louis Conradt Jr.
Louis William "Bill" Conradt, Jr. was a district attorney in Texas. He became inextricably linked to To Catch a Predator after he committed suicide when a SWAT team entered his house, with Dateline cameras recording the action.
Conradt's death prompted criticism of the show, already attacked by some on the legal and journalistic profession for breaking down the walls between the press and the police. A year after the incident, national magazines Rolling Stone and Esquire published articles attacking To Catch A Predator.
Hansen was criticized for his predator series; among the accusations he faced was that he colluded with law enforcement authorities to conduct the stings. Hansen has strenuously denied these accusations, claiming that he and law enforcement agencies conducted "parallel investigations" and that he barely talked to law enforcement during the cases. In his article, "Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die," Esquire writer Luke Dittrich accuses Hansen of deception.
In its September 2007 issue, Esquire magazine interviewed Hansen about the show and in particular, the case of Louis Conradt. In the interview, Hansen defended To Catch A Predator and its practices, but admitted he never saw a Myspace page that he mentioned in his blog and on the show to incriminate Conradt.
According to the Esquire interview, Murphy detective Sam Love claims that Hansen asked the Murphy police to obtain a warrant for Conradt, since Conradt had stopped communicating with the decoy. Hansen denied doing so, and claimed no knowledge of anyone from NBC or Perverted-Justice making such a request.
Hansen admitted to several other inconsistencies or gaps in his personal memory. He claimed that NBC cameramen were never on Conradt's property; footage obtained by Esquire showed a cameraman on the property even before SWAT team members had arrived. Hansen angrily claimed that members from Perverted-Justice were never at the scene. He recanted after the Esquire interviewer described what one of the members looked like.
Books
- Hansen, C. (2007). To catch a predator: protecting your kids from online enemies already in your home. New York, N.Y.: Dutton.
Awards
He received the "Good Scout Award" from the Powhatan District, National Capital Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America on November 19, 2007 at the Hyatt Regency in Reston, Virginia.