This may have been posted before, but I just saw this. (I went to the WTBS "Official" Medai site, and this letter is posted there)
2/7/02 Letter to DatelineA link to the PDF is
Jehovah's Witnesses' respectfully declined when Dateline NBC recently asked them to participate on camera for a live interview. Although cooperating with the producer wherever possible, such as in supplying documents, videotaped statements and samples of their publications, they politely refused this offer.(pdf version)
https://www.jw-media.org/releases/rgreenberg020702.pdf
Thier reasoning, (paraphrased)
The people on the show were not considered "adveseries" since they still considered themselves to be Jehovah's Witnesses, and they wanted to settle the matter internally (ie not in a public forum).
That letter is also very telling to those that are now being told they people on the show are "evil apostates".... As I understand it, the show was "in the can" months ago, so the stories are not from an apostates point of view.
My only comment on the Dateline story is about the final comment, I really wished he would have expanded on his comment that the folks faced DF for coming forward. (that was not left clear enough for me).