TV's obsession with lurid cases is hardly new, but even London and Lebanon may be pressed to compete with JonBenet For the three competing U.S. cable-news networks, desperate for viewers in the midst of the summer doldrums, the arrest in Thailand was like manna from heaven.
Suddenly, the JonBenet Ramsey murder case, which dominated the airwaves for much of the late 1990s, was back.
"It's soap opera, as news," said Jeff Cohen, a former cable television producer, pundit and author of Cable News Confidential, a memoir of his years in the industry.
In a business driven by ratings, the return of the lurid decade-old child murder in Colorado has all the elements needed to boost audiences, he said.
"There's what seems to be a dysfunctional family, a murder mystery, sex," he said in an interview -- plus the chilling videotape of the six-year-old victim dressed as a beauty queen.
"A big selling point for her story was the almost kiddie-porn footage, where they'd have her in full makeup wearing a chintzy dress and prancing around."
Mr. Cohen said the suspect, teacher John Mark Karr, may actually have nothing to do with the crime. And yet, he noted, "It would be fitting if it's a guy involved in child pornography, because that's what cable news was thinly exploiting."
This U.S. networks' obsession with crime and sex is nothing new. In the slow months before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, cable news was dominated by the disappearance and death of Washington intern Chandra Levy and the suspicions surrounding congressman Gary Condit, with whom she had an affair.
"That guy Condit was repeatedly accused of murder by people who were not held accountable for accusing a completely innocent guy," Mr. Cohen said.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0818-26.htm
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