When Jason Cornwell was a cast member on MTV's Real World: Boston, his background was thoroughly checked before the cameras rolled in the converted firehouse that served as the show's set and Cornwell and his cast-mates' home for six months.

That was 1997, a more innocent time when major networks weren't dominated by unscripted programming; the guileless, mostly young people who appeared on the shows weren't referred to as "reality-TV stars”; and an apparent murder-suicide hadn’t thrown the legitimacy of a genre into question.

Cornwell is now on the other side of the camera, running a his own casting company that helps select participants for shows like CBS's Kid Nation, TLC's L.A. Ink, and the show that brought him into the industry, The Real World, which, amazingly, is in its 22nd season on MTV. According to a recent report in the New York Times, reality programming takes up more than a quarter of the broadcast networks' prime-time programming. On cable, it's even more ubiquitous—and valuable. An unscripted show can cost between $100,000 and $500,000 per episode to produce as opposed to upwards of $1 million to $2 million per episode for a quality scripted show. After the writers' strike of 2007-08, reality shows became even more valuable to networks stung by the cost of producing scripted programs, what with their pricey actors and writers and difficult unions advocating for better deals.

But by eliminating those actors and writers, producers may be opening themselves up to even more costly challenges from the not-ready-for-prime-time cast members of reality shows.

The news last month that Ryan Jenkins, a participant in VH1's Megan Wants to Marry a Millionaire and I Love Money 3 was the prime suspect in the murder of his wife, Jasmine Fiore, a model invariably (and inaccurately) described as a Playboy model, led to the immediate cancellation of both shows. Jenkins' subsequent death of an apparent suicide exposed major flaws in the vetting process for those—and potentially other—shows: How did someone like Jenkins—a man with a rap sheet in his native Canada for domestic abuse—manage to get on the shows in the first place?

"I can't understand this, knowing how the process works," Cornwell, head of Los Angeles-based Cornwell Casting, told Portfolio.com. "We've done a million shows for VH1 [and] all the networks. It's hard to get people through the process. There are so many steps along the way that you've got to clear to get through."

Cornwell's company did not cast Megan Wants a Millionaire or I Love Money, but he's well versed in the casting process for similar shows. According to Cornwell, potential cast members go through rigorous background checks, either a Level 2, which offers "a snapshot of their lives," or a more extensive Level 4, which can cost between $500 and $1,000.

"If they have a felony, of course, they're out," he says. "If they have misdemeanor battery, assault, or a restraining order, they can't go on the show."

The company responsible for casting Megan Wants a Millionaire was called Real Talent Casting (now known as Iconic Casting), which posted an ad on the website RealityWanted.com in December 2008 for a show called Trophy Wife.

"Looking for the ultimate trophy wife?" the ad asked. "Reality TV star and Playboy Cyber Girl Megan Hauserman is looking for a man who will shower her with love and money…. VH1 is casting single men of the highest pedigree to compete for the bikini-clad bombshell from Rock of Love 2, Charm School, and I Love Money…. If you are a single man with a net worth of $1,000,000 or more, then Megan would like to meet you…. Whether you are a CEO or a trust-fund baby, Megan would make the perfect arm candy for any man…who can afford her!"

Iconic Casting still lists Megan Wants a Millionaire on its website. The company declined to be interviewed by Portfolio.com, but in 2007, Brendon Blincoe, founder of Iconic, told the New York Daily News' Cristina Kinon a little bit about how he finds talent for reality shows. "I'm going to ask you questions that you won't typically hear on a job interview. I may ask how many people you've slept with, or I may ask when the last time you had sex was or when you last had a one-night stand."

"The best advice you will hear from everyone in casting is to be YOU and be YOURSELF," Blincoe told RealityWanted.com in 2008. "[W]e can tell when you're putting on a show." (Caps are theirs.)

Since Fiore's murder, both shows featuring Jenkins have been scrubbed from VH1's website and iTunes offerings. VH1 appears to be reconsidering its reliance on the entire category those shows fell into. Anyone who's been compelled to linger over a show like Rock of Love, Real Chance at Love, and others on VH1, knows the conventions of the genre: all that heightened drama set amid crazily decorated McMansions with strategically placed steam showers and Jacuzzis filled with hotties and hotheads competing for a demi-celebrity's love (or some similarly worthless cash prize) and the chance for their own spinoff shows. Since Fiore and Jenkins' deaths, those shows seem tawdrier—and less appealing—than they did before.

VH1 President Tom Calderone, who became head of the network less than a year ago, told the Los Angeles Times' Joe Flint, "This is not what I signed up for." He also told the Times he was meeting with executives at 51 Minds, which produced both shows, in order to "fix this problem and never ever let this happen again."

A statement put out by 51 Minds (quoted by the Los Angeles Times) claimed that the investigative firm tasked with vetting Jenkins' application blames a Canadian court clerk's error for the fact that a person with a record made it through the process. Cornwell finds this surprising, since "You're relying on your background-check company. They're investigation firms—their entire business is built on being reliable."

No one is directly blaming the shows' creators, casting people, or the network that bought the programming for what one of the participants did in his off hours—not yet anyway—but it does raise concerns about the vetting process that placed someone like Jenkins in close contact with other cast and crew members under the aegis of a network owned by a major corporation. In this way Jenkins' killing is different from the 1995 murder of Scott Amedure, who had been shot by Jonathan Schmitz after both men appeared as guests on The Jenny Jones Show. Amedure, at the prompting of producers, revealed his crush on Schmitz, an acquaintance, who was so embarrassed, he killed him after the show aired. Warner Bros., which owned and distributed Jones' show, was successfully sued by the family of the victim to the tune of $25 million. (A decision later reversed.)

A lawyer for the Amedure family told the New York Times' Keith Bradsher in 1999, "This industry has got to clean itself up because these people care nothing about the people they use and abuse." A lawyer for Warner Bros. said, "This will have a profoundly chilling effect not only on talk shows but on all media."

Daytime talks shows did decline in the years following the murder. At one point it seemed everyone from Carnie Wilson to Ronald Reagan, Jr. had a daytime talk show, but a "decency" campaign aimed at advertisers (spearheaded by Joseph Lieberman and James Bennett) chipped away at the genre. (Presumably, the public's fatigue from so much yelling and finger-snapping helped too.) There are still outlets for arguments and baby-mama drama on daytime TV, but it's far less prominent than it was before the Jenny Jones case.