The New York criminal trial of former President Donald Trump is well underway, and recent testimony has shined a spotlight on an often-maligned practice of journalism: "catch-and-kill." While generally looked down upon by reporters at major news organizations, catch-and-kill journalism is the practice of "buying the exclusive rights to stories, or 'catching' them, for the specific purpose of ensuring the information never becomes public" by halting the story's publication, otherwise known as "killing" it, The New York Times said. This technique is typically used by supermarket tabloid newspapers such as the National Enquirer and Star. 

Examples
When reports of catch-and-kill instances leak, they often dominate the headlines. In 2005, American Media Inc., which owns the National Enquirer, promised to "pay a woman $20,000 to sign a confidentiality agreement about an alleged affair" with then-California gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger, according to the Los Angeles Times. The scandal caused a firestorm in the media when it occurred, though Schwarzenegger would eventually be elected governor. 

American Media, which is now called A360media, allegedly has a number of dedicated files on "various celebrities containing all of the dirt that they haven't published on someone," reporter Ronan Farrow said to NPR. A360media often doesn't publish things "because of an arrangement they broker with a powerful person." 

Trump trial
Many of these tabloid catch-and-kills have involved the former president over the years, and Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, testified about these instances during Trump's trial. The most notable involved the National Enquirer "purchasing and killing a story about an alleged affair between Trump and former Playboy model Karen McDougal," Rolling Stone said.

The Wall Street Journal broke the news of the Trump-Enquirer scandal in 2016, just four days before the presidential election. Eight years later, Pecker now admits that catch-and-kill was a common practice of his tabloid. "We used checkbook journalism," Pecker testified during Trump's trial, said CNN. "And we paid for stories." 

"Baby Reindeer" begins by telling viewers that "this is a true story." Now, the Netflix hit is at the center of another real-life drama starring an army of armchair detectives. The seven-part series stars comedian Richard Gadd and combines two autobiographical plays he wrote that "premiered to rave reviews" at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, said Vox. 

Gadd's character, Donny, is stalked by a woman named Martha and sexually assaulted by a comedy agent, with both "deeply disturbing events" depicted through a "lens of intentional overexposure." Although the names have been changed and some fictional elements have been added, speculation about the real-life mystery of the perpetrators' true identities has raged since the series premiered last month. 

Legal drama 
Some viewers "quickly created a horrible sort of sequel" by attempting to expose the stalker on social media, said Eva Wiseman at The Guardian. "Historic tweets were urgently screengrabbed, photographs posted side by side, she was quote-tweeted as if a celebrity — the character's name was trending for days." In a now-deleted post on Instagram, Gadd wrote: "Please don't speculate on who any of the real-life people could be. That's not the point of our show." 

Internet sleuths also tried to identify the real "high-profile comedy agent," played by Tom Goodman-Hill in the show, who allegedly raped Gadd, said the Daily Mail. After being falsely accused, theater director Sean Foley tweeted that the police had been informed and were "investigating all defamatory abusive and threatening posts" against him. The woman who is supposedly the real Martha has since claimed she will be suing Gadd and Netflix. 

Understanding the times
Gadd should be allowed to tell his story, said Marina Hyde on the podcast "The Rest Is Entertainment." But TV companies should "understand the era they are living in" and should have foreseen the social media reaction. More of the story should have been "better disguised." For anyone making a show about real people, this might be when "compliance just got tightened by about 8,000%," said co-host Richard Osman. This will be the "patient zero." 

Gadd is "by no means the first creator to confront the slippery ethics around true crime," said Vox. Some of the controversy surrounding "Baby Reindeer" was perhaps inspired by the scene where Donny goes online and "begins digging up dirt on his own stalker." Although Gadd might not have anticipated the runaway success of the show, he could have "at least anticipated that if he couldn't resist Googling his stalker, neither could anyone else."