NBC plays "To Catch a Residual" with PJ

Hey Kansas City, remember Perverted Justice? They were the all-volunteer group responsible for the most talked-about feature in the short but lurid history of the KCTV-5 investigations unit. They arranged for a sting operation that caught local men looking for sex online, setting up a meeting house in Independence and luring the "pervs," as PJ liked to call them, into the trap.  (To further refresh your memory, here's a story I did for the Investigative Reporters & Editors magazine on PJ.)

PJ may have been all-vol, but it sold itself like it was P&G. It was moving up in the world quickly. After doing stings for local news outfits in Detroit, Kansas City and several other markets -- in Kansas City it approached all four stations about doing a hookup, so clearly it did more than just lure cyber-stalkers -- PJ finally got the attention of the big boys. NBC signed the group to an exclusive stinging deal with "Dateline," which effectively saved the dying newsmagazine from complete obscurity and made it, most recently, the butt of a Conan O'Brien joke at the Emmys last month.

Now here's where the story gets disturbing. Radar's John Cook -- who in addition to being a fine reporter fronts a helluva great alt-country band with his brother --  reports that NBC agreed to pay PJ a portion of the profits from the upcoming DVD series based on "To Catch a Predator." 

OK, it's not going to sell like "The Greatest Generation" (we hope). But just as Tom Brokaw splitting proceeds from that book with NBC, for a book hawked continuously on his newscast, was wrong, so is sharing profits with a news source. 

Maybe it's just accepted by everyone in this day and age.  News is showbiz and what's a little profit-sharing among partners in entertainment, right?

But it's actually wrong, wrong, wrong.  What the heck, I thought I'd just point that out.