Why is it illegal to have a quiz show which gives out the answers ?
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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.
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kswiss89 — 12 years ago(December 12, 2013 03:50 AM)
Considering how big of a deal it became, you could say he didn't have anything better to do. Given the coverage and everything that became of the scandal it definitely was the thing that made him famous. The trial was his claim to fame, regardless of how nonsensical it seems for him to pursue it now.
"Even though I'm no more than a monster - don't I, too, have the right to live? " -Oh Dae-Su -
Franny25 — 12 years ago(December 23, 2013 07:45 PM)
Television was viewed differently back then. There was more of "the airwaves belong to the public" attitude and integrity was expected of those who used them. Perhaps it was because it was still a fairly new medium and the fact that people trusted it - that may have been the underlying motivation for the original interest. Congress did have oversight over it and until you complete your investigation you don't know what it might uncover. There very well may have been crimes committed in the furtherance of the cheating (bribery, extortion, fraud, threats, regulatory infractions, etc.) - I can't remember now but if perjury occurred before the grand jury then obviously that was a crime.
And don't forget that people did lie to Congress. Sometimes even if you can't prove a crime occurred (that is, we can't prove everyone who was in on it and to what extent) it's still important to the public interest to put on the record what people claim happened. Sometimes all you can do is lay it out and let the public decide who they think lied or was dishonest. The scandal opened the eyes of the public to the level of deception being foisted on the American people by various powerful entities. It also put a lie to a lot of people who were tarnished by it all - some to greater degrees than others.
This is one of my favorite films. Being familiar with Goodwin I thought Morrow was wonderful in the role. For me these movies about ethical dilemmas create more powerful drama than any other. Shattered Glass comes to mind as another favorite.
A poster asked for most powerful scenes. For me they were when Goodwin is playing poker with Van Doren and he tells him "I know you're lying," when Goodwin is confronted by his wife about how his feelings for Van Doren were allowing him to escape being confronted with a subpoena versus his treatment of Stempel, and when Van Doren tells his dad he cheated and his dad reminds him "your name is my name."
The picnic at the van Doren home in Connecticut is wonderfully played out showing the obvious tension and dysfunctional relationship between Charles and his father which has become invisible to family members and so clear to Goodwin witnessing it as an objective outsider.