While we shake our heads at the consistently uncomfortable "gotcha!" programming about the dangers of online pedophiles, NPR plays the voice of reason:

A recent story from NPR's On The Media raised the troubling issue of 50,000. Reporter Brooke Gladstone notes that NBC's Dateline claims that there are 50,000 sexual predators online at any given time, and that kiddie porn is a $20 billion a year business.

So, where do these figures come from? According to the FBI's Ken Lanning, 50,000 is a common number used in reporting about crime for something that is an important problem but not enormous.

So online pedophiles aren't an enormous problem? Ack. Don't tell NBC, OK? Their entire schedule's really banking on this shit.

What's 50,000? [Living in a Media World]