Karr Case Chokes a Scandal-Fed Media

For me, the last straw was when she called her Patsy.

MSNBC bubblehead Rita Cosby was breathlessly recounting the disintegration of the case against John Mark Karr as the murderer of Jon Benet Ramsey Monday, speaking to Pam Paugh, the sister of Jon Benet's now deceased mom, Patsy.

And she called her Patsy. Worse, Paugh herself had to remind Cosby that her first name was Pam, not Patsy, who died in June of ovarian cancer. A least Patsy didn't have to suffer through yet another media circus centered on the murder of her 6-year-old child, as news outlets which should have known better, spent weeks assuming there was substantive evidence linking Karr to the child's murder.

It was an outcome I predicted more than a week ago, appearing on Mitch Albom's Detroit radio show during a discussion about the media frenzy surrounding this case. Back then, I suggested those interested in getting a good handle on the case read newspaper reports -- particularly the dominant Denver-area media such as the Rocky Mountain News. Despite early, breathless reporting of their own, these papers also questioned whether Karr's confession was legitimate and noted that the prosecution's case depended on DNA evidence which would likely decide the issue.

Unfortunately, such subtleties as the possiblity of a deeply disturbed man confessing to a crime he didn't commit were largely disregarded by a news cycle led through cable TV's insatiable appetite for attention-getting scandal coverage. And once again, journalists are stuck with an embarrassing performance which only further erodes our credibility as purveyors of the truth.

ABC News correspondent Jake Tapper predicted as much back on Aug. 17, writing on his blog about the "unholy alliance between idiot authorities and reporters hungry for a scoop." He was talking about the way in which the media rushed to judge the Ramsey family, based on flawed information from hapless investigators. But he could have been writing about this latest iteration, in which many news outlets clucked about the edia's past performance in the case, while rushing to commit new sins of overcoverage and hype (TVNewser has a great item on live shots at Jon Benet's grave here).

Expect the finger pointing to begin in earnest today. The boneheaded authorities investigating this case already have taken hits from the media today -- "Why didn't they just do the DNA testing in Thailand?" CNN legal expert Jeffrey Toobin asked Monday -- and there will likely be some vitriol reserved for University of Colorado journalism professor Michael Tracey. Known for producing documentaries friendly to the notion that an intruder killed the child, Tracey contacted police with information on email exchanges with Karr which implicated him.

And there will be the requisite stories asking whether the media went too far in this case. Regardless of the answer, I fear we all know how the throng will react the next time an opportunity presents itself; refuse to learn from history, and you are most certainly doomed to repeat it.

Katrina Anniversary Today; Remebrances All Over the Dial

I've been so busy with other stuff, I've had little time to watch Katrina anniversary stuff, besides Spike Lee's most excellent documentary. Fortunately, Richard Prince has collected a great rundown of Katrina anniversary programming on TV and in radio for his site, Journal-isms; check it out here.

As someone who spent about a week in New Orleans five months after Katrina hit, I've felt some mixed emotions about the issues: mostly, I'm surprised at how many people still tell me they don't realize how screwed up New Orleans still is, or the depth to which governmental institutions continue to fail the people of the city. At a time when some media types are debating "Katrina fatigue," some folks still haven't fully tuned into the tragedy in the first place.

I'm also discouraged that so few news outlets have tackled the larger issues of race and class exposed by the calamity. I decried such lack of wider coverage six months ago; other media critics note the trend is continuing at the one-year mark.

Seems the Jon Benet chasers aren't the only ones who refuse to learn from the past.

(photo credit: MSNBC publicity, Associated Press, TVNewser and Times photographer Willie Allen; click on any photo to enlarge)

Comments

[joe hillman]

eric:

the culmination of this media event came last wednesday, late afternoon.

i was in the doctor's office and the tv was on cnn. wolf blitzer was in the middle of his "situation room" when he fielded a call from someone who claimed to have had a relationship with karr at some point and intimate knowledge of karr and the child.

blitzer began asking questions. i personally loathe this whole subject and its tawdry details right down to the borderline kiddie porn of the deceased mother using her kid in this manner.

anyway, i zoned out on the tv and began reading a magazine article. a moment later, i heard blitzer say, "i'm sorry, we can't touch that."

still a moment later, i heard blitzer say, "i have to apologize to our viewing audience. howard stern is alive and well on satalite radio. we've just been the victim of yet another howard stern prank call."

captain jenks struck again!!!

given this freak karr, lord only knows what jenks said. i'm dying to find out though. :^)

[Eric Deggans]

If you want to check out a Howard Stern-inspired Karr prank on CNN, try this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qW1Y3qCYP0&mode=related&search=

[joe hillman]

thanks eric. i will when i get home. provided it's still there. :^)

Regarding Karr... There were 3, and only 3, people in the house that night. The parents or the brother killed her. People simply don't break into an occupied home, take a small girl to a distant corner of the basement to murder her, then sit down at the kitchen table to write a completely pointless ransom note. It simply does not happen. A pedophile would have removed her from the home as quickly as possible, and wouldn't have bothered with a note. A kidnapper would have brought the note with him, and obviously would have taken the child. Patsy the murderer is surely burning in hell right now.

As for Katrina... GIVE IT A REST!!! A big hurricane hit a city that sits below sea level. The leaders of that city failed to evacuate people. This failure lead to a situation where the government was too busy rescuing tens of thousands of morons from their attics, to screw around with the little things. The only part that race plays is the obvious lack of responsibility among the black community. They've learned well from jesse jackson and the other scumbag leaders who run around with their hands out, blaming whitey for everything. BTW, did racist spike lee mention his theory that Bush blew up the levees? Sorry but the only thing I have to say about Katrina, is shut up, stop whining, and a get a damn job already!!!

[Eric Deggans]

If only Katrina was that simple. I find it amazing that anyone can shrug off an event that killed 1,300 people and disbursed half the population of one of america's oldest cities.

You keep telling yourself that this is just about people who won't shut up and get a job -- and we'll all be stuck watching history repeat itself when the next storm slams into the Gulf Coast...

[dreaming]

if a storm hits the gulf coast, something tells me it wdnt take as long to clean up around here.

Of course history will repeat itself. The morons in NO ensured that by reelecting the same impotent fool who failed them during Katrina. Seriously Eric, the whole race card thing just saps my sympathy. You in the media, along with parasitic black leaders, politicized a natural disaster. When I hear people saying the government would have been quicker in responding to rich white people, I just think "too bad you didn't drown, you scumbag demagogue."

[Eric Deggans]

I don't think anyone can answer the question of how the government would have responded had most of the victims been white. But we have a president and a ruling political party that is very open about how it takes care of those who are on its side and punishes those who are not. So I don't blame people for being suspicious of a president who opposes affirmative action, snubs the NAACP, supported capital punishment in a state where poor black men were executed in wildly disproportionate numbers and has cut funds to the social programs that help the urban underclass most.

Like it or don't, race is a the heart of many issues in New Orleans. Black voters chose Nagin in hopes he would champion rebuilding poor neighborhoods instead of opening them up to developers and gentrification. Nagin, who was elected as a tool of the moneyed white elite in New Orleans, is now caught between a black constituency who wants him to defend their interests and a white power structure with opposite goals.

i don't blame you for wanting to ignore issues of race in this situation -- it makes apportioning blame so much easier. But the race and class issues at work here are massive, and ignoring them while tossing around insulting language won't do anything but preserve your own ignorance.

Holy crap, is that really how you measure a presidents value to the black community? I guess a good president would hand out bonus points for all tests taken by blacks, meet with scumbags from the naacp who compare him to Hitler, make sure black murderers are able to live out their days as happy little prisoners, and put on a santa outfit to pass out welfare checks for all. Sounds like a plan for success to me. At what point will you stop moaning about what the government hasn't done for you, and start doing something for yourself?

[Zhombre]

DA Nifong in Durham NC is examining the DNA evidence and may still seek to question Karr regarding the Duke rape case however.

Well Eric, now that you're the times tv critic, here's something I'd like to see you write about: The racist Citi Bank anti-theft commercials. There are about a half dozen different commercials now, and every single one of them portrays the identity thief as a redneck or a ditzy valley girl. The stereotypes are unmistakeable. I suspect there would be quite an uproar if all the commercials portrayed the thief as a ghetto thug. It's a little hard to take your commitment to diversity and racial sensitivity seriously when you don't even notice blatant anti-white stereotyping that shows up on your tv screen 20 times a day.

[Eric Deggans]

Yeah, there's lots of stereotypes out there casting Valley Girls as rabid criminals.

If you're going to press the case for anti-white stereotyping, please tell me you've got a better case than this. Please.

So you think it's a coincidence that all the criminals are white? And you don't have a problem with the portrayal of rednecks idiotically talking about the motorcycles they bought? What if all the criminals were black and saying yo dawg, gots me some diamonds up in my grill, and new spinners. Yeaaahhhhh boy...???? You'd be okay with that?

[Paul]

I hesitate responding to the comments above about the CitiBank commercials because I’m not so sure a blog response board is the most suitable forum for this topic (and, indeed, the discussion has strayed from Eric’s original post). However, I will say this: the author makes a good point about representation in these commercials, but what we can learn from them is not “how white people are constructed” v. “how black people are constructed” and what is socially acceptable (or, in the author’s view hypocritical) but rather how these (kinds of) representations work in society as a whole. To make this short, it comes down to power. What are the social consequences of portraying a person of light skin (you may assume “white” here) as a social deviant versus that of a dark skin person the same way? There are far more social images and discourses available to counter and contradict that of the light skin character over the dark. And make no mistake, there are real, profound social consequences for this. All this said, while I disagree with what I see as the intent of the author, I do sympathize, in part, with what the author points to, and that is that, indeed, there is a long history of the “stupid” white southerner, and this is (and has been) problematic.

[Zhombre]

Actually those Citibank commercials are subtly racist, because they imply persons of color aren't canny enough to pull off identity theft.