Why is it illegal to have a quiz show which gives out the answers ?
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aaaf-2 — 14 years ago(December 12, 2011 10:10 AM)
Well I think the only reason we (today) don't believe in entertainment-TV to be real is exactly because of cases like that portrayed in the film.
I think people were a lot more gullible back then, and because of scandals like this one that has changeddon't you think? -
Mandrake1979 — 14 years ago(December 13, 2011 04:55 PM)
Fraud springs to mind. When money is offered as a prize and the game is fixed, be it in a Casino or on a quiz show or reality program you are conning the customers/clients/contestants. If the makers of the show made money off the subsequent fame and recognition of the contestant, which it did, then everybody who tried to win the prize was Conned exactly like in three card monty. What would be your reaction to this if it happened with your favorite sports team and you found out they had cheated to win?
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Xtreme-Theater — 12 years ago(April 18, 2013 10:08 PM)
A civil case brought by one of the losing contestants. Well they wouldn't be able to get the evidence of the corruption. The actual investigation was able to go behind the scenes and investigate, to try to find evidence of fraud. Even in that case it took over 3 years and they barely lucked into finding evidence in the form of note cards with the answers in the possession of a contestant on another show. With a civil case, they wouldn't have been able to investigate and find that evidence, and it would have ended up in court as "they cheated and I know because they cheated for me at first then had me take a dive" "And what evidence do you have to support that?" ".."
"Okay, case dismissed". Even when Stempel made the initial accusations, they didn't believe him anyway.
I don't know art, but I know what I like! -
MyDarkStar — 14 years ago(December 14, 2011 02:37 PM)
but then again, with the idea of fraud against the losing contestants, couldn't that just have been covered by having all the contestants sign an agreement which states something to the effect of : "The network reserves the right to hold any of your wins, or to grant a win towards one of the contestants under any circumstances etc etc " ?
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Mandrake1979 — 14 years ago(December 18, 2011 01:41 PM)
It could be a civil matter I am not really sure on that count. I am thinking that all the contestants would be able to create a joint action against the makers of the show but only the negative publicity would have any real affect. Basically what happened to the show when it was accused of cheating the makers lost their cash cow and moved onto the next project.
On the contract side if any contestant had signed a contract about 'the network reserved the right' it would only apply if the contestant cheated, if it was the network that cheated then any good lawyer would make that contract null and void. -
TreeHuggerKyle — 13 years ago(May 20, 2012 01:16 PM)
Perjury is only an issue if they lie under oath in a court of law. So once they were in front of the Grand Jury, then yes, they perjured themselves. I think the question is why it was illegal for them to do it in the first place.
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BullSchmidt — 13 years ago(May 01, 2012 07:00 AM)
I don't understand why this whole case needed to go in front of Congress. They weren't breaking any laws.
You're right, running a rigged quiz show was not illegal at that time. Once it was revealed that quiz shows were often rigged, the general public reacted with outrage. Thus the Congressional hearings, to determine whether legislation was necessary to prevent it from happening again, and if so, what form that legislation should take.
To put it another way, the public found out what was going on, screamed "there oughta be a law against that," and Congress did exactly what it was supposed to do. Congress has to be able to gather information and inform itself in order to legislate effectively; that's why it can hold hearings, subpoena witnesses, etc.
Lying to a Congressional investigation is illegal and was back then. Several of the witnesses who tried to cover things up during their testimony ended up with perjury convictions. -
Doc80 — 13 years ago(June 09, 2012 08:26 AM)
Right, it wasn't illegal to rig a game show at that time. If it was, then guys like Dan Enright would have ended up in jail.
Even if a game show tried to do what twenty-one did back then, I still don't think anyone would actually go to jail nowadays. -
bron-tay — 12 years ago(October 03, 2013 09:31 PM)
I agree wholeheartedly, but it seems the first person to sniff around the scandal was a prosecutor, not an investigative reporter.
So it got prosecuted, not simply blown wide open.Please put some dashes above your sig line so I won't think it's part of your dumb post. -
MyDarkStar — 12 years ago(November 23, 2013 11:35 AM)
Which makes me ask : Didn't HE have something better to do than sniff around a game show ? The guy went to Harvard and was working for a Senator. I would think he could think of something better to do than dedicate his time to something a little more significant than this.