One of the things I’m most curious about is how some news is not newsworthy but other news is. Who decides what makes it to the air? What are their decisions based on? If a network decides to pursue one story, how many others do they decide not to pursue? What is the agenda during the meetings where it’s decided what to cover? Are there HR people in the room? Is there a white board involved?
All of which made me wonder about last week’s frenzy over the graduate student murdered at Yale. Even before her body was discovered on the day she was to be married, Good Morning America was all over it, reporting on the fact that she’d gone missing, her last known whereabouts the lab building where her remains were ultimately found. I don’t want to come across as being flip about it, but seriously, a graduate student at Yale is missing so let’s get it on the national news? I don’t have any statistics on hand, but don’t people go missing every day of the week in this country?
The student’s body was found on Sunday, and by Monday Good Morning America was warmed up, fully rehearsed and ready to go. And go they did. At first I thought it was just another example of the horrors we can all look forward to as the Diane Sawyer era dawns, but I was wrong. This story was carried by Katie Couric, on the evening news, which I still like to think isn’t quite as dumbed down as the morning crap. And a continent away, in my city, the story was covered by local radio and television stations.
That’s where the story got even stranger.
On the local morning news program, the arrest of the suspect was mentioned, along with an invitation to stay tuned for Good Morning America for more information on the fact that police had released him. Had you missed that little bit of information – that the suspect was, in fact, released – and tuned in instead only for the beginning of Good Morning America, I would forgive you for assuming that the suspect was indeed guilty. That’s because Good Morning America, true to form, played the video footage, in slow motion, of the suspect being escorted to the police car, pushed down into the back seat and driven away over and over and over – seven times, at which point I stopped counting – before acknowledging, once, and very quickly, that he’d been released. Wasting no time, the next item was an interview with a retired law enforcement guy who walked through what likely happened after the student had been murdered, a narrative threaded together by information about when and where he used his card key to access certain rooms in the building. By the following morning, the DNA tests had indeed linked the suspect and the murder. And with that the show continued. A motorcade was filmed driving down a road with flashing lights, turning a corner and taking the suspect into custody at a motel where he’d spent the night in a room with his father. Given the fact that the cops were staked out in front of the motel the entire time the suspect was there, why the parade? Why the show business? Why the waste of tax dollars and national air time for the “capture” of a guy who’s at a motel not far from his apartment and under full surveillance? Why is this a national news story? Why, in Portland, Oregon, is it a local story, updated every hour on the hour? I asked my neighbor, who works in the news biz, on Sunday afternoon. Her boyfriend answered on her behalf: first, the victim is young and cute, and second, America loves it when the Ivy League people turn out to be as sleazy as the rest of us. My neighbor did not disagree.
Whatever the reason, I’d imagine the suspect’s attorney is pretty happy about the news coverage. It’s probably the only bright spot on the horizon for him and his client. His client was declared guilty on national television before the results of the DNA tests were available. All due respects to the family and friends of the murdered student, but what would be truly thrilling would be to see people like Diane Sawyer and Chris Cuomo put on the stand and forced to explain, without a teleprompter, their rush to judgment.
I was going to leave it at that, but then I found this tucked in among the other news items on CNN.com on Tuesday:
A Florida man in custody in Haiti faces first-degree murder charges in the deaths of his wife and five children, authorities said Tuesday.
All of which made me wonder about last week’s frenzy over the graduate student murdered at Yale. Even before her body was discovered on the day she was to be married, Good Morning America was all over it, reporting on the fact that she’d gone missing, her last known whereabouts the lab building where her remains were ultimately found. I don’t want to come across as being flip about it, but seriously, a graduate student at Yale is missing so let’s get it on the national news? I don’t have any statistics on hand, but don’t people go missing every day of the week in this country?
The student’s body was found on Sunday, and by Monday Good Morning America was warmed up, fully rehearsed and ready to go. And go they did. At first I thought it was just another example of the horrors we can all look forward to as the Diane Sawyer era dawns, but I was wrong. This story was carried by Katie Couric, on the evening news, which I still like to think isn’t quite as dumbed down as the morning crap. And a continent away, in my city, the story was covered by local radio and television stations.
That’s where the story got even stranger.
On the local morning news program, the arrest of the suspect was mentioned, along with an invitation to stay tuned for Good Morning America for more information on the fact that police had released him. Had you missed that little bit of information – that the suspect was, in fact, released – and tuned in instead only for the beginning of Good Morning America, I would forgive you for assuming that the suspect was indeed guilty. That’s because Good Morning America, true to form, played the video footage, in slow motion, of the suspect being escorted to the police car, pushed down into the back seat and driven away over and over and over – seven times, at which point I stopped counting – before acknowledging, once, and very quickly, that he’d been released. Wasting no time, the next item was an interview with a retired law enforcement guy who walked through what likely happened after the student had been murdered, a narrative threaded together by information about when and where he used his card key to access certain rooms in the building. By the following morning, the DNA tests had indeed linked the suspect and the murder. And with that the show continued. A motorcade was filmed driving down a road with flashing lights, turning a corner and taking the suspect into custody at a motel where he’d spent the night in a room with his father. Given the fact that the cops were staked out in front of the motel the entire time the suspect was there, why the parade? Why the show business? Why the waste of tax dollars and national air time for the “capture” of a guy who’s at a motel not far from his apartment and under full surveillance? Why is this a national news story? Why, in Portland, Oregon, is it a local story, updated every hour on the hour? I asked my neighbor, who works in the news biz, on Sunday afternoon. Her boyfriend answered on her behalf: first, the victim is young and cute, and second, America loves it when the Ivy League people turn out to be as sleazy as the rest of us. My neighbor did not disagree.
Whatever the reason, I’d imagine the suspect’s attorney is pretty happy about the news coverage. It’s probably the only bright spot on the horizon for him and his client. His client was declared guilty on national television before the results of the DNA tests were available. All due respects to the family and friends of the murdered student, but what would be truly thrilling would be to see people like Diane Sawyer and Chris Cuomo put on the stand and forced to explain, without a teleprompter, their rush to judgment.
I was going to leave it at that, but then I found this tucked in among the other news items on CNN.com on Tuesday:
A Florida man in custody in Haiti faces first-degree murder charges in the deaths of his wife and five children, authorities said Tuesday.
Yep, five children and a wife. The story did not warrant its own box on MSN – as the Yale story did – nor did Katie Couric or the local radio station bother with it. As for Diane Sawyer, on Wednesday morning she was busy with other things, including an in-depth – by her standards, anyhow – chat with the high school girlfriend of the presumed killer of the graduate student at Yale. She went on Good Morning America with her mom and confessed to a very concerned looking Diane that her high school sweetie was very charming but that he was a control freak and had an anger management problem.
