One of the ‘greatest media embarrassments in modern history’

August 29, 2006

Oh, so [tag]John Mark Karr[/tag] didn’t kill [tag]JonBenet Ramsey[/tag]. The [tag]media[/tag] didn’t have to treat this as the biggest story of the year. Now they tell us.

Truth be told, if Karr had been guilty of the crime, the media’s breathless coverage would have been excessive to the point of embarrassment. But now that Karr is guilty of perpetrating a hoax, it’s time for some serious media introspection. As Howard Kurtz put it:

Will 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 [tag]embarrassment[/tag]s 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?

Silly Mr. Kurtz, he thinks they’re capable of shame.

Of course, the print press didn’t exactly keep the story in perspective. Two weeks ago, the Karr arrest and a federal court ruling on NSA warrantless searches happened on the same day. TV “news” devoted as much as 15 times more coverage of the bogus Ramsey arrest, while the New York Times devoted 13 reporters to Karr’s hoax and two to the NSA case.

The degree of the screw-up is breathtaking.

I’m particularly fond of seeing the media now chide the media.

An Associated Press article late Monday referred to how “a hyperactive press went into overdrive, eager to pronounce guilt.” It also noted that the AP and other news organizations “placed teams of journalists on Karr’s flight from Bangkok to the United States and chronicled his dining experience” of champagne, fried king prawns and roast duck.

Yes, instead of fired editors and journalistic apologies, it seems likely that we’ll see a series of “news analysis” pieces highlighting this as a textbook example of how not to perform responsible journalism. Genuine apologies, I suspect, will be far and few between.

As Bob Geiger noted, “I’m sure a few will feel that guilt — at least until the next blonde chick goes missing in the Caribbean.”

Karl rove is laughing his fat ass off, and his stooge, Karr, will be laughing his ass off on the way to his laundered and suddenly huge swiss bank account.

  • Um, let’s take a look at the news ratings for the time period when the Karr story broke. Did the ratings go down because people were tuning away from JonBenet and looking or news out of Federal Court and Wire tapping? There you go. Infotainment killed the American Democracy (with a little help from PNAC).

    I’M MAD AS HELL AND IM NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!

  • just as olbermann showed that everytime bad news hit the bush administration, the threat level was raised for spurious reasons, i think the case could be made that everytime a report condemning the bush administration is released, another pretty white girl disappears.

  • Americans get the media and elected leaders we so richly deserve. As a whole, we are a deeply unserious, inattentive, shallow, self-absorbed bunch, and it shows in the bullshit we choose to focus on. What’s more important, the president breaking the law or a 10-year-old murder case involving a 6-year-old prostitot? Incidents like this offer no great hope for our country.

  • Are you kidding! I want to know what every suspect in the world is eating. When someone is accused of a crime my interest in their culinary consumption is instantly piqued and until I know what they’re masticating and imbibing I’m as nervous as a member of Cheney’s hunting party.

    I can’t wait until Karr’s movie comes out. I’m not sure about the working title, though: Fake On A Plane.

    Kudos to infotainment for providing me with every detail of this creepy miscreant’s life. Did anything else happen during all of this? Ah, who cares. Bring on the next story!

  • We need a conference on how this unserious and hyperactive new thing called “blogging” is sapping the American media of its precious bodily fluids! These “bloggers” don’t even have editors to keep their fevered imaginations in check! The horror!

  • The Rocky Mountain News put this on their front page and at the top of their web-site for the last two weeks. I wrote and asked them why I should read their editorials when they showed such glaringly poor judgment here. Why indeed should any of these media nitwits have a voice when they cannot discrern an obviously bogus story?

    And I’ve already encountered one justification that they are only giving the public what it wants.

    It isn’t Fox that conquered the current newscape. Entertainment Tonight did.

  • prm,

    …involving a 6-year-old prostitot

    That is revolting. Why you feel the need to slander a 6 year old, whose parents were responsible for her beauty pagent participation is beyond me. However, this parent of a 6 year old girl (who does not participate in beauty pagents) is angered by the reference to a 6 year old as a prosititute. I’m not normally a violent man, but if I ever met you in a bar rest assured you’d regret speaking of a SIX year old that way.

    Disgusting.

  • This guy, after spending all of his money on Thai hookers, had no money to get home. So he confesses to a murder that is sure to get him back to the US on a free ride. Or it could be folks (DickHead) knew there was a court announcement about wiretapping and found something to get our Kool-aid drinking folks to focus on instead.

  • “The degree of the screw-up is breathtaking.”

    If I was the cynical type, which I tend to be most mornings, I would say that this media frency was no screwup.

    They were simply following orders from above. 🙁

  • I’m getting the impression that the coverage was overblown because it was a hoax. Even if the Kook did do it this is not National News. It certainly doesn’t trump an important Federal Court decision knocking King George down a notch. I’m especially disappointed in Bob Schieffer and the so-called “News” department at CBS. Not surprised, but disappointed.

  • “Two weeks ago, the Karr arrest and a federal court ruling on NSA warrantless searches happened on the same day.”

    I don’t think it is any coincidence. I have yet to hear why Homeland Security was in Thailand participating in this arrest. The police have known about this guy for months or years, evidently, and yet they chose that day to make the arrest and announcement. This story stinks like George Bush’s used jockstrap, and it has Karl Rove’s smegma all over it.

  • Edo,

    It’s a slang term, and it’s applicable here. Look it up.

    Either way, I look forward to our meeting.

  • Maybe after the media is done apologizing for the JMK screw-up, they’ll apologize for the Whitewater frenzy. Nah.

  • Boring.
    Stupid.
    A red herring.

    I didn’t read a word.

    Nevertheless… here is a must read must Guardian article by Brian Eno that speaks to rightwing corporations and the art of mind control.

    The key of course is getting the electorate to heartily feed on their spicy slop. The Ramsey thing fits the mold… Shall we call it “distract and awe?”

    Note:

    Eno renames modern propagada as “prop-agenda.”
    That works for me too…

    Which is also to say:

    The introduction of the Outer Limits TV program is where Democracy is right now.

    She’s dead or moribund.
    Take your pick.

    It doesn’t matter anyways because:
    It is over folks– and she ain’t coming back anytime soon…

  • prm,

    from dictionary.com: “No results found for prostitot.”; http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=prostitot&r=5

    from wikipedia: Prostitot is a derogatory American term for prepubescent girls who dress to emulate the dress styles and attitudes of twenty something women such as Britney Spears. It especially means those who wear tight jeans and bare belly shirts.Also included are form fitting short shirts, miniskirts and heavy makeup. The age category is generally considered to be 10 to 14 year olds.

    She was 6. Name the bar.

  • “This guy, after spending all of his money on Thai hookers”

    No, Fresca, what was first reported, then immediately dropped was that he was actually arrested on another sex charge. Given his proclivities and Thailand’s status as the pedophile’s Mecca, I have no doubt that he copped to the Ramsey murder so he would get extradited and not have to spend the rest of his life in some Thai dungeon. I hope Thailand asks for him back now.

  • What is really sad and pathetic is that Mrs. Ramsey, who recently died, was told before her death that this Karr character was a serious suspect in the murder of JonBenet. Imagine going to your grave (and Hell afterwards) thinking at least they will get the killer of your little girl, and its all a lie.

  • Yeah, the media sucks, and I usually take second place to nobody for bashing the ineptness of the mainstream media, but I’m still with Drum on this one. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_08/009414.php
    Let’s not forgot to blame the American public who is much more likely to turn to news about this story than about about illegal NSA wiretapping. Actually, I think Drum goes a little easy on the media. The media and the public share the blame on this.

  • prm,

    Now that i’ve thought about it some more: wotever. If you get your kicks calling dead six year olds derogatory slang terms, then that’s your problem, not mine. I retract my stupid challenge; you aren’t worth my time or energy. My aplogies to Mr. Carpetbagger and the rest of the readers here. This obviously overly sensitive father of a 6 year old girl requests your collective forgiveness.

  • I’m not with Drum. With the story on every single station, the only remaining option is to turn the TV off. Which works for me just fine. In fact with the number of viewers shrinking all the time I’d say many others are taking the one remaining option as well. These high-powered TV exec’s , so called, are always moaning about declining viewship. They blame the Internet, Cable, etc, etc. Everyone but themselves. But for those who want to continue watching real news where are the choices? I see the PBS Newshour, and that’s about it. Pretty amazing, when you realize that our local Evening News runs from 4 until 6:30, and yet it’s just the same 5 minutes of Pap, repeated over and over.

  • What do you suppose would have happened if one of the networks, say ABC, ran a 30 second news segment aknowledging the fact that there had been an arrest and that all the other networks and media outlets were devoting a majority of their resources to covering it, BUT that ABC would cover the significant news of the day pending any substantive developments in the Karr story? Would their viewers change the channel? Or would they gain some respectability as a new outlet?

  • Seriously. Could John Mark Karr be a Rove plant?

    Certainly, Bush’s Brain couldn’t have asked for more.

  • Imagine going to your grave (and Hell afterwards) thinking at least they will get the killer of your little girl, and its all a lie.

    Correction:

    Imagine going to your grave (and Hell afterwards) thinking at least you got away with killing your little girl, and everyone believed the lie.

  • I would like to think that enough viewers would switch over to ABC if they did that. Those TV types are just a bunch of lemmings, lacking any originality, so if one did it and it worked they might all start to follow. Seems that’s how we got the Murdock Style – one station at a time.

    Of course their collective balls are about the same size as the little marbles rolling around in their empty craniums, so I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for any of them to break.

  • LP,

    Ouch! That is a cold assessment. Not that there is anything I can use to dispute your beliefs.

  • The discussion thread for an article on the MSM’s preoccupation with a lurid and ultimately vacuous story is now dominated by discussion of the definition(s) of “prostitot.”

    The irony is breathtaking.

  • prm,

    Does it give you pleasure to use that awful word? Your comments on this are despicable, and I’d like to take over Edo’s challenge to you.

    Laszlo Panaflex,

    Despicable would be a compliment after that post, I simply don’t have words for what you are.

  • Last week THE DAILY SHOW’s Rob Corddry reported on the media’s obsession with John Mark Karr.

    From inside a toilet.

    ‘Nuff said.

  • This unceasing coverage of marginal stories is definitely the norm these days. Should the media be embarrassed about the whole Karr buildup? Probably. Will they acknowledge their embarrassment in any way? Of course not.

  • I thought the timing of Karr’s arrest was rather convenient, too. I skimmed the story when it first came out and thought THEN that it seemed pretty shaky.
    Poor little girl, who had no choice when her parents decided to turn her into a tiny beauty queen, to be remembered as she is, a sort of freak of nature or worse.
    That Karr’s confession was a hoax surprises me not at all. While we were all hyperventilating over the creep, the Bush administration pulled a few more fast ones.
    Are we EVER going to learn?

  • Nethead Jay,

    Sorry, bottomfeeder, the offer was only open to Edo and he regretably decided to back out. I would have even bought him a round.

    You’ll have to “take up the challenge” somewhere else.

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