regarding opinions expressed on my post below.  ANd the opinions were from both sides.

That must be some kind of record.

Now how come Diane Sawyer (20/20) couldn't find this kind of simple and plainly evident truth in a doucemntary that took 2 years to produce!

Who ever said that television "news" magazines have any interest in presenting the truth?

I think they actually had it in the can for two years waiting for the right time to release it-- the right time being when it was made pertinent by prostitution the news.

The very first thing I read about it from blogs was that the network had WAITED for two years on it. Then that was "corrected" (by who? I don't know) to say that they had spent two years making it.

The correction doesn't ring true: no way do the networks spend two years on a story these days. Especially on a subject like prostitution. Moreover, how lucky that they seemed to get it finished within a few weeks after the Spitzer story breaks.

So, the hype about it was bullshit to begin with, and instead of some brave investigative reporting, they were actually too chicken to release this stinker without a big, national prostitution story to ride it on.  

The network knew it was crap, and their only hope to recover production cost was some break in the news.

So why couldn't 20/20 see the truth? Because it was cowardly, wretchedly poor reporting aimed at brown-nosing ratings from a civie audience.

Penn and Teller did a decent segment on prostitution on their Showtime show a couple years ago. For part of it, they paid an indie in Albuquerque, I think it was, a grand to shadow her for a day. She had a couple of incall sessions and told them the details of each after the dudes left. Just your basic, seemingly intelligent chick making 3 bills an hour. Too dull for mainstream reporting I guess.

Needless to say, P & T gave the hobby a positive slant but gave a couple anti-prostitution bitches equal time to express their uninformed, bullshit arguments like Sawyer.

I understood that the special was shot 2yrs ago but the network said No and shelfed it. They may not give the go on a project but throw it in storage for future reference. Just incase a scandal breaks out and they may want to dust it off and go with it after adding a few new clips to refresh it.

Penn and Teller did give a couple of anti-prostitution bitches equal air time, but made them look like the uninformed, narrowminded bitches that they were.

but I was struck by the amateurish (not sure if that's a word, lol) nature of the story.

2 yrs to produce?  Yeah right.  Give me a case of beer, a camcorder, a Winnebago and some film school students and I could make it in an afternoon.  Pathetic.

My guess, Sawyer was trying to be an "edgy" journalist and the network felt it was endy alright- like on the edge of the worst reporting ever, lol.  So they panned it.

Then Spitzer decided to be an idiot and presto chango- the producers remembered it and it was an easy sell.

XO
Melanie

The show was sitting on the shelf. ABC didn't want to air it when it was finished two years ago as they thought the climate at the time was not right. when the Spitzer cluster fuck broke they dusted it off, added a couple of recent interviews and aired it in all of it's sensationalist glory...

segments?

I like those fellas, partly because they aren't the smug know-it-alls of the right and/or left.

Of course their method is far from waterproof, and I'm sure they'd be the 1st to admit it.   The point is only that there's clearly another side.

What should be crystal clear to everybody is that media bias is to ratings, not an ideology; but that doesn't mean an individual reporter is any more or less honest than anybody else who sucks up to a customer - or provider!

We, TER collectively, ought to write the script for "The Busted Spouse" (not nec. Spitzer), that is a dialogue of spouses discussing "why are you going out when you can get it here?"   We all know the half-dozen stock answers that cover 99% of the situations, and maybe it's a start to dealing with it, instead of hyperventilating about it.

You're selling yourself short, my dear.

but the show airs on Showtime. They are currently airing shows from previous seasons so the chances are good that this episode may air again soon.