That'll do Nancy Grace--That'll do

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Sensationalism - having seven adjectives in a single headline

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uploaded by Drew Bulman

IOWA CITY - I was slow to write this piece because I'm afraid doing so would only rake muck in what is already a filthy mess.  HLN (formerly CNN Headline News) has never been a bastion of solid TV journalism.  Filling the 24 hour news cycle with fluff pieces and tabloid-style news, HLN acted as a sort of catch-all for news pegs deemed unfit for its sister network, CNN.

So criticizing HLN for its quality of content might be unfair.  Consumers wanted tabloid news.  CNN, a business as well as a news institution, delivered.  If Pulitzer-prize caliber journalism is what's desired, one can always pick up a copy of the LA Times or The Washington Post.  After all, HLN was never designed to be the city on the hill for cable news networks.  It was designed to be the opposite--entertaining.  When I was fortunate enough to speak to Washington Post reporter Robert Pierre about this phenomenon earlier this winter, he summed it up beautifully.  "Everybody watches for a train wreck." 

But what do we do when HLN begins to move away from the idea of 'news as entertainment,' and begins to enter into the realm of the revolting?

For eight months, former prosecutor Nancy Grace has covered, almost obsessively, the Caylee Anthony murder investigation on her self-titled HLN show.  Plenty has been written about Grace to be sure, but such commentary often quickly devolves into ad hominem attacks.

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09 Part 3

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sourced by Drew Bulman

What makes this situation so startling is not necessarily the show's coverage, but the false pretenses that attempt to mask the rampant exploitation.  The idea that Grace is some empathetic crusader of justice bent on maintaining a superior moral high ground is consistently shoved down the viewer's throat.  Yet, it's clear after only a few minutes of watching her television show that there's something much more disturbing taking place.

A toddler has been murdered, and it has been paying Grace's bills for the better part of a year.  Commercial breaks are preceded by intimate home video and photos of the now-deceased toddler, backed by a music track fit for Schindler's List.  Old behind-the-bars video footage of murder suspect Casey Anthony, the toddler's mother, repeats endlessly as Grace carries out her interviews and monologues.  Photo slide shows of the deceased toddler play out in whatever space not already reserved for the litany of talking heads brought onto the show each night--eight months and counting.

Bombshell. Breaking news. This just in.  Regardless of what minute detail has come to surface regarding the murder investigation, Grace never misses an opportunity to sensationalize it under the guise of empathy or outrage.  The pejorative media phenomenon known as missing white woman syndrome has met its match, and all it took was a toddler.

What prompted this piece was a photo I snapped that, at first, caused me to laugh at the sheer ludicrousness of it all.  As time went by, it became increasingly clear to me that this isn't just sensationalism--it's absolutely deplorable.