{"id":8323,"date":"2006-08-29T11:12:45","date_gmt":"2006-08-29T15:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8323.html"},"modified":"2006-08-29T11:12:45","modified_gmt":"2006-08-29T15:12:45","slug":"one-of-the-greatest-media-embarrassments-in-modern-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/one-of-the-greatest-media-embarrassments-in-modern-history\/","title":{"rendered":"One of the ‘greatest media embarrassments in modern history’"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

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<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

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?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Silly Mr. Kurtz, he thinks they’re capable<\/i> of shame.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> more coverage of the bogus Ramsey arrest, while the New York Times devoted 13 reporters<\/a> to Karr’s hoax and two to the NSA case.<\/p>\n

The degree of the screw-up is breathtaking.
\n
\nI’m particularly fond of seeing the media now chide the media<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

As Bob Geiger noted<\/a>, “I’m sure a few will feel that guilt — at least until the next blonde chick goes missing in the Caribbean.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8323\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}