Why Greta, Geraldo and Fox News are Bad for
Law Enforcement
By Dave Smith
Lead Instructor - Calibre Press Street Survival Seminar
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This Monday we found Fox News transfixed with yet another beautiful
missing coed. We watch talking heads speculate ad nauseaum about
what they are watching and we watch real-time as law enforcement
searches for the missing woman.
This has become a very routine technique for Fox News and many
of the other outlets that our society uses to get its "news."
Most of what we heard was not actually news or even particularly
factual, but mere speculation about what happened in Madison,
Wisconsin the night this particular beauty disappeared. I am not
sure what will happen, but the cynical cop side of me fears the
worse and aches for her loved ones.
I am, however, sure of what will happen on Fox News today as
this story unfolds. We will watch as our brothers and sisters
search to identify this victim and solve this crime. Their every
movement, their every utterance will be speculated upon by talking
head "experts" who are usually lawyers or judges or
medical examiners who know no more than we do about this particular
crime. Geraldo Rivera will be brought in as a valid journalist
when he is truly a ranting ideologue who more often than not will
disparage the police or prosecutors if he gets a chance.
Greta Van Sustern will overdramatically discuss this tragedy
and any others she can find to speculate upon. The woman whose
career in cable news was born from her silly little "micro-verdicts"
throughout the O.J. Simpson trial has truly become the television
version of a vampire feeding on the blood, death and suffering
of others. She offers absurd speculations and expansive comments
about crimes just occurred or remembered. She will often join
Geraldo in some ridiculously broad conclusion based on no facts
whatsoever but validated by a lineup of talking heads answering
speculative questions from a reality based on the assumptions
being made right there...in other words, creating their own reality
and pseudo-facts.
I always pity the families of the victims and the agencies involved
in these self-selected "high profile" crimes. This is
the paradox; the crimes selected are often very mundane in our
world. No less and no more tragic than a plethora of crimes that
occur in our society frequently, Fox and the lesser entities of
cable news will suddenly find a victim that catches their fancy
and off they go. Very often, nothing is certain in these cases
but the repetitive pontificating is no less intense. Who is a
suspect, a person of interest, a "we don't have a name for
it anymore," none of that matters as dribble spews forth
on and on. It used to be a common saying in police work, "everyone
is a suspect," but now law enforcement has to use euphemisms
or deny leads just to continue their investigation.
A beautiful child and classmate of my youngest daughter was recently
murdered along with her mother and two siblings by her father
who unsuccessfully attempted to make the crime look like his wife
was the offender as the family drove the first leg of their summer
vacation. This caught the imagination of Fox and CNN and even
though the surviving father was shot superficially in the leg,
Greta and Nancy Grace and all the other harpies of death speculated
about moms who kill, and talked about how the father was not even
a person of interest. My wife and I watched all this with increasing
agitation, wondering how soon the dad was going to be arrested.
He was arrested, of course, and is awaiting trial back here in
Illinois.
What Fox and CNN and all the other 24/7 "news" outlets
need are ombudsmen who internally monitor what is said on the
air and how crimes are presented to the viewing public. Every
time the networks are wrong they should be called on it; in fact,
they should have to mea culpa publicly for it. They should understand
that justice is not an instant process but often a long and tragically
emotional process of victims and perpetrators, and often the public
speculation and attention interrupts the steps involved.
Choosing one crime out of many to over-investigate and microscopically
speculate upon doesn't do anything to improve justice, it just
increases ratings. In fact, it often leaves the public with a
gross misunderstanding of the criminal justice system, the investigative
process, and even the frequency and nature of crimes. If you believe
cable news networks, pregnant women should fear their mates above
all else, all prosecutors are corrupt, beautiful coeds are the
predominant victims of violent crime, children are constantly
being snatched by strangers, and on and on.
You do your job in a world filled with criminals and victims
and a system that demands you prove your case beyond a reasonable
doubt. The adversarial nature of the judicial process is tough
enough without the defense attorney's great allies in the media
constantly criticizing the police and prosecution. Such cases
as the "Duke Rape Case" suddenly became an indictment
of prosecutions everywhere when Greta uttered the absurdity that
"thank God this happened to rich college kids so they could
defend themselves as everyday this happened to poor kids who would
certainly have gone to jail."
Greta, get a grip, it was because they were "rich college
kids" that made this case important for a desperate prosecutor
pandering for reelection, and it was the attention this crime
received from Fox and CNN that made it a cause for a broad group
of factions who used it to garner public opinion for their particular
agendas.
The other victim in this farce was the criminal justice system,
the same system Greta damaged in the Simpson Trial when she grabbed
her fame. At that time I interviewed her for LETN and asked her
if it wasn't wrong for her to do her daily "micro-verdicts"
on the day's testimony. She replied she wouldn't have a job if
she didn't and I told her the criminal justice system didn't exist
to give her a job...I guess I was wrong.
I hope your agency isn't the next one to come under the speculation
of the Cable fools and I wish the Madison Police Department well
in their investigation of this tragic case. I guess the best way
to handle this is to assign your smoothest communicator to feed
the networks with sound bites while the rest of you do your jobs...good
luck.
Dave Smith's Newsline is reprinted by permission from PoliceOne.com
and Calibre Press
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