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cable TV, the entire spectrum, has gone as insane and unwatchable as Congress.
The JonBenet Fraud
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Washington PostWill every anchor, correspondent and producer who shamelessly hyped the John Mark Karr story now apologize for taking the country for a ride?
Don't hold your breath.
This was such a sham, from the opening moments, that it instantly goes down with the greatest media embarrassments in modern history.
A strange, creepy character emerges from the shadows of Thailand and says he killed JonBenet Ramsey a decade ago? A guy with no known connection to the family? A yutz whose own relatives, including an ex-wife who hates him, says he wasn't even in Colorado at the time?
This is what produces 25-hour-a-day cable coverage, causes the network morning shows to go nuts and even tops the nightly news two days straight? Aren't the TV types who pumped up this empty balloon just a little bit ashamed?
Oh, and does the New York Daily News run a retraction for its banner headline "SOLVED"?
They're still blabbering about Karr all over cable. Not only are they not ashamed, they're going to continue to milk this less-than-non-story for weeks or months. Anything to avoid talking about Dubya breaking the law and continuing to break the law.
en Assholes.
cable TV, the entire spectrum, has gone as insane and unwatchable as Congress.
Who would have thought that the intro of 24-7 News would have meant less real news?
It's just me, and I didn't see how they did it, but...
A. Why isn't Kurtz calling out the WP?
B. Who in their right mind uses the NY Daily News as a reference for good journalism?
And Dan, your argument would make better sense if you used the industry's own critiques in this case...
http://poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=106682
No apologies for JonBenet reporting
Published August 29, 2006
The knee-jerk reaction is to say the media ought to apologize for inundating viewers and readers with stories tying John Mark Karr to the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, a flood that presumably crested with Monday's announcement that he will not be prosecuted for the crime.
Sorry, but it's knee-jerk reactions that got the media into this situation, so that might not be the best course of action.
After all, it wasn't the media that made Karr the prime suspect for 12 days in a 10-year-old murder case. You can thank authorities in Thailand and Colorado for that.
The media reported doubts almost from the start.
The Ramsey case is one of those stories, like lighter fluid, that needs the least spark to set ablaze. The authorities and Karr himself reignited it, bringing it back from the shadows of more recent media frenzies such as the Runaway Bride, Natalee Holloway and so on.
The recent death of JonBenet's mom, Patsy, a favorite figure among amateur sleuths though she was never charged, had briefly brought the case back into prominence. But the embers were dying down when Karr was arrested and then confessed.
A 10-year-mystery solved!?!?
Maybe, but in any event the case was white hot once again.
True, the media went overboard with the rerunning of the kiddie pageant photos and videos that made the story such a sensation from the start. But, no matter what readers and viewers claim about being repulsed, bored or ambivalent, the media make their money by responding to what the public is interested in, as well as what's in the public interest.
Let's not forget, it was also the media that reported complications such as Karr's ex-wife saying the guy was nowhere near Boulder, Colo., on the night of the crime and how DNA tests would be needed to sew up the case.
There was always the implicit assumption that authorities couldn't possibly be so stupid as to press ahead, reviving a case that had been a thorn in its side for years but was starting to fade from public consciousness, without having a case of some sort.
Except, it seems, they were.
And they took everyone--the public, the press and John Mark Karr--for a ride.
Unfortunately, only Karr got to travel in business class, as was also duly reported, further feeding the public's appe e.
Geraldo Rivera, for whom the Ramsey case was a cottage industry for years, was about to leave Chicago, headed to New Orleans for the anniversary of Katrina, when he learned Karr was not going to be charged.
"Mary Lacy, the Boulder district attorney, should either be impeached or resign," Rivera said. "For her to arrest this guy with this whole international uproar--one of the most extraordinary media events in recent times, people comparing it to the Lindbergh baby and all the rest--with no forensic evidence and no evidence that the alleged perpetrator was even ever in Boulder, I think goes beyond the pale.
"It's not just that she had an error in judgment," he said. "What she did, in my view, was commit professional suicide. As for John Mark Karr, he's still a creep and a sicko and all the rest of it from his own admission."
Media mistakes were made, of course. Listening to people such as commentator Nancy Grace (who told Paula Zahn without a shadow of doubt in 1999: "Clearly, Patsy wrote the ransom note; now, it's clearly a conspiracy case, and they beat the rap because they're rich and affluent") try to give themselves wiggle room in light of new developments was amusing.
The efforts to keep this story alive even as it clearly was running out of gas would have been comical if they weren't also taking the public away from less sensational stories that might ultimately matter more.
Typical was Kyra Phillips' live Aug. 18 CNN interview with Colorado investigators Ollie Gray and John San Agustin, formerly with the police in Boulder and later hired by the Ramsey family.
Phillips: "You guys actually see all these e-mails that triggered authorities to finally go after John Mark Karr?"
Gray: "No."
Phillips: "You didn't see them?"
Gray: "We did not."
San Agustin: "I have not seen all the e-mails either."
The interview continued on this decidedly uneventful path. The guy's name wasn't in their database. They didn't know if he ever contacted the Ramseys. They said they had no idea if he's the killer but an investigation would sort that out.
Phillips read them an excerpt from one of Karr's e-mails.
Phillips: "Anything [in] addition to these fantasy-type statements that caught your attention where you thought, this could be the guy?"
San Agustin: "No, ma'am."
Phillips: "Nothing at all?"
San Agustin: "No, ma'am."
This might have been legit reporting if the exchange had been taped and wound up on the cutting room floor rather than beaming out live on America's most trusted source for news--and, apparently, non-news, too.
"Everyone I came in contact with was talking about the Ramsey case," Rivera said, "whether it was my nanny or the people in the neighborhood or the guy that takes care of my koi pond."
Yes, Geraldo has a koi pond, and he said even his mom was asking him about the latest revelations about JonBenet. "When it gets to that level," he said, "you know it has an interest that's almost universal."
But as for getting the story wrong in the race to satisfy that interest, Rivera recalled the West Virginia Sago mine disaster, which for a brief time was a happy miracle only for the grim truth to emerge later.
"It wasn't the media that portrayed a false story," Rivera said. "We were reporting a story that was sourced by scores of people, including the prime source, the governor. Here's another case: The district attorney goes to an extraordinary measure to arrest this person, leaking all kinds of details. Then there were the Thais allowing him to confess on camera. It's not the media's problem. We're part of the consuming public."
What's indisputable is the public and the press share a love of endings that are neat and tidy. The Ramsey case has failed them in this to date, just as the justice system has failed to tie together all its loose ends.
Maybe everyone was just a little too eager to grasp for whatever they could reach and held on long after it would have made sense to let go.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...l=chi-news-hed
Kurtz is a putz, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.
And yet you use him to make a legitimate argument? That doesn't speak too highly of you, Dan.
There were so many editors, producers, directors, et al, that went guns blazing with their coverage and for that, I think Cable News needs to be held to the fire.
I don't expect anything less from, say a Court TV (since they're not going to talk about environmental issues or the November elections), but I do expect better from Fox News, CNN and MSNBC.
But you also have to admit, many of them were reporting (and seeking out those who would be in the know...Karr's ex-wife, for example) that there were problems with the case, timeline and other factors.
Plus, who leaked all this information. The press? No, it was probably PD or DAs involved with the case in Boulder to help strength their cases through the media.
Let's see, the online edition of the LA Times is running two stories about Karr today.
The Chichago Tribune is running three.
The Washington Post is running is running five.
Business as usual....
I would say the LATs stories have legitimacy, although I could see condesing them into one [but as I know an editor would tell me, tons and tons of gray (text) will bore a reader who will stop reading].
I think the bigger note should be that the LAT has THREE staff writers (and how they determine staff writers, I do not know), but they have THREE people in Boulder, CO, based on the datelines.
That's a bigger issue to ponder. Why is it necessary for three staffers from the LAT to be in Boulder? Is there going to be a whole of a lot of information they can scoop?
My point is that the M$M skirts its responsibility when it comes to reporting real news in favor of these tabloid-esque news stories, not that Kurtz is right in crying crocidile tears after the fact.And yet you use him to make a legitimate argument? That doesn't speak too highly of you, Dan.
Exactly. I don't see why TV news is getting on when everybody devoted a ton of resources to this nonstory. The thing about the 24 hour news networks is they are forced to do much of their investigation and discovery as the cameras are rolling. All the doubts were presented from the start in the coverage I saw.
This is typical MSM template.
Sensationalize and beat a story to death...facts be damned.
It's all about television ratings and print circulation. Everything else takes a back seat.
Ah, it's a business after all. I would hope eventually the media might turn the tables and ask their viewers/readers/listeners why they care so much about JonBenet.
Some of the blame does go on the shoulders of the viewing public. It's almost like the chicken and egg question.
Does the media dictate what people want or does the public dictate what the media report on?
I think SOME of the blame needs to go to the public, but the majority should go on editors, producers and directors who didn't stop and try and take the high road.
The paper I just came from could barely staff its city desk, much less send somebody to Boulder, CO, just to say they were there. Plus, I doubt the audience would have given a rat's ass in San Angelo.
Exactly.
"take the high road."
The product is the viewers. TV sells viewers to advertizers, who don't give a about the high road, but only that viewers are seeing their ads. The advertizers know they are not seen, except in very rare cases, as sponsors or advocates of TV content.
Just as voters get the politicians and government they deserve, viewers get the TV they deserve.
Last edited by boutons_; 08-29-2006 at 07:00 PM.
I called bull on that guy the day they arrested his ass.
My finace and I had the same conversation the day they rolled him out.
gf: "Good, they got the bas ."
me: "You'd be surprised how many nutjobs there are calling cops everyday confessing to crimes they never committed."
They followed the same pattern with the Plame story and the NSA Leaks. I agree, let's prosecute the MSM.
Throw all their asses in jail.
Karr was a convenient weird-ass. I don't think the MSM overplayed the story because they assumed he was guilty, I think they overplayed it because it gave them an excuse to show video and photos of a very disturbing (and, to many, captivating) character.
It was never really about news. But has the Jon Benet story ever been?
10 years exploiting a dead 5-year old.
Screw fraud, how about Pedophilia and Nercrophilia?
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