CNN - JONBENET: CABLE TV'S BIG FINALE?

JONBENET: CABLE TV'S BIG FINALE?

As expected, cable news outlets, which have devoted untold hours to coverage of the JonBenet Ramsey murder case, covered the arrest in Thailand of a suspect as if it were the opening of hostilities in another war, particularly in the case of MSNBC, which scored a beat on the story at 3:46 p.m. The third-place news channel was the first to air a report about the arrest of the suspect, then quickly went wall-to-wall with it, providing interviews with print and broadcast journalists who have covered the story over the years and presenting a telephone interview with the Ramsey's attorney. Dan Abrams, who himself had devoted much attention to the Ramsey case before becoming general manager of the cable news network, reappeared on camera to discuss it. Abrams presumably also made the decision to preempt regular programming and stick with the Ramsey story even while news about it was sparse, boasting on the air that "this is a story you heard first on MSNBC." Rival cable channels played catch-up. According to TVNewser, CNN did not run a story about the arrest until 4:17, more than a half hour after MSNBC broke it, and Fox News didn't go with it until 4:41 p.m. (TVNewser posted a message from a reader claiming that Fox News actually aired the story at 4:20.) On broadcast television, Barbara Walters made a rare appearance on Nightline to interview (by telephone) John Ramsey, the father of the murdered girl, who said that he and his late wife had been informed that authorities had zeroed in on a suspect and that an arrest was imminent. Asked by Walters whether he felt "vindicated" by the arrest, Ramsey replied, "I've never felt convicted other than by the media."

17/08/2006