She's untruthful, unethical, hateful and often wrong. She makes America worse. Can her.
There she went again, smearing her vile invective across our screens, diminishing us all as human beings.
Poking her stink finger into another none-of-her-business, Nancy Grace managed to make the death of Whitney Houston somehow more tawdry. "I'd like to know," the HLN host spew mused last week, "who let her slip or pushed her underneath that water." She later unapologized on Good Morning America, regarding Dan Abrams appeals to decency as "arguing with me over semantics," accusing him of having gone to Harvard Law School and defending her blithe murder charges with her go-to pretense: "I still want the truth."
The truth, to Nancy Grace, is whatever is handy and profitable. Her truth was that Gary Condit murdered Chandra Levy. Her truth was that the Duke lacrosse team raped Crystal Gail Mangum. Her truth was that Richard Ricci kidnapped Elizabeth Smart (when it later became true he did not, but had unfortunately died in custody, Grace said, "I'm not going on a guilt trip.")
When she isn't convicting people on spec, Grace spreads ugliness, fetishizing the disappearances of young white women and small white children, asking questions that not only don't need to be asked (by her) but wouldn't have been allowed when she was a prosecutor -- as she should recall, having had two convictions thrown out by the Supreme Court of Georgia, once for insinuating unrelated rapes and murders into her closing arguments, and in the second instance being reprimanded, "the conduct of the prosecuting attorney in this case demonstrated her disregard of the notions of due process and fairness, and was inexcusable."
Grace has imported her injudicious style to television journalism, where it is also unethical, it may surprise you to learn. "I think she has managed to demean both professions with her hype, rabid persona, and sensational analysis," Jonathan Turley, professor of law at George Washington University, told the New York Times last May. The professor is being too kind. Grace's verdict first, trial afterward judicial philosophy "erodes the respect for basic rights," as Turley says, but she also corrodes justice itself. Called on her pre-evidentiary convictions, Grace is quick to get technical, to point out that only a jury has the power to convict, but woe to the jury that disobeys her. When 12 people weighed actual evidence and determined Casey Anthony not guilty of murdering her daughter, Grace declared that little white Caylee's "death has gone unavenged." Did you hear that, loyal, rabid viewers?
And to justice, add truth to Grace's swath of destruction. Her every vehement assertion that later proves false feeds into the fashionable but dangerous notion that the mainstream media cannot be trusted; her connect-any-dots arguments (All the evidence always points to the guilt of whomever is in her eyeline) promotes a cognitive approach favored by conspiracy thinkers. She's not terribly bright, and she's contagious.
Nancy Grace is a blight on cable television; she is bad for civilization.
She's entitled to her opinions, of course, but in a truly just world, she would be spouting them from a dark sticky corner in some sour rathole. Pat Buchanan might even buy her a beer.
However, as a prosecutor, she was flagrant and repeatedly admonished by the courts for having included unrelated and unprovable statements to contaminate the jury's deliberation process.
As a "journalist" (I use that word very loosely here), she has been repeatedly admonished by law experts of all kinds, including practicing lawyers and prosecutors, for continually contaminating jury pools by including unrelated and unprovable statements.
She does NOT speak for the victims...ask Elizabeth Short if you want proof of that. When Miss Short was on Nancy Grace many years after her kidnapping, Nancy Grace was constantly attacking her as though she were the criminal, stopping only when Miss Short told her that she wasn't going to talk about it because of all of the damage that Nancy Grace caused.
Furthermore, every high-profile case in which Nancy Grace has stuck her uninvited nose has resulted in the person that Nancy Grace "convicts" as being released, or proven to be not guilty. Thus, she has not done one iota to help the victims catch their attackers.
Truer words have never been spoken. I skip her shows even if Mr. Rodger's Neighborhood is the only option. You can't get a worse review than that! But that's because I'm 59 1/2.
Attention be it negative or positive = ratings = $$.
I find this way to heighten ratings to be a lowly way of reporting. It's simply unethical.
This causes a viscous cycle because in order to stand up to her and others of her caliber, one needs to listen to her in order to sight her biased, crass reporting. Which means that people that do so up ratings even more.
Many letters have been written to people who employ her to no avail because meanwhile they're making $$ from her.
"When she isn't convicting people on spec, Grace spreads ugliness..." You pretty much said it all here Mr. Doyle in observation of her sorry approach to reporting.
I agree with what you're saying, but I think that PenDragon brings up a very valid point. There are many people who simply think that because one is on TV or reporting 'news', they are factual. Ethical, even. Now that she's actually reporting for Good Morning America, I fear that many more will believe she is an unbiased journalist - which she seems not to be, much more often than not.
After reading this article and so many of these posts, I watched a bit of her show last night, and I remembered *another* reason that it frightens me SO much. Not only do her guest/contributors/etc., also follow her lead, sometimes - MANY TIMES - they are even more dramatic and damning than she is in the first place.
Last night they discussed a man who shot his wife. His claim he was looking @ his AK-47 and talking to her while she bathed their young child. For arguments sake, let's believe him. He claims that he thought for certain it was unloaded, recalls the specific conversation they were having about it, down to how bright it's laser light was. He admits pulling the trigger - again, thinking it was unloaded. He owns over 25 firearms and is an avid hunter, and this certain gun was kept in a closet in that bathroom as they live in a small house. It shoots her.
We are of course played the 911 tape, and it's horrid. Let's say it was an accident. He might be in total shock, which would keep him from bawling. He might be trained well in emergency situations, and while he is panicking and sounds like he's freaking out and crying somewhat, he's trying to save her. What does her first guest say? Over and over, HE'S GUILTY, because SHE DOESN'T THINK HE'S CRYING HARD ENOUGH. From an audio-tape. Are you kidding me? Then Nancy chimes in about how a gun enthusiast would know better than to keep a gun in a bathroom closet. This family lives in a small home, not anything as large as these two are used to. Common sense - it's never inserted.
Again, I have no idea what happened in that bathroom - but neither does she, and until each of us are in that same situation (and I pray we never are), we have no IDEA how we would react. Even if we did, it *still* wouldn't know how he would. Make sense?
And yet, I'm willing to bet that numerous potential jurors heard that woman condemn him last night, and thought that because she was on NG, *obviously* she knows what she's talking about. Oye.
Maybe what people need to do is appeal to their cable company to drop the station. It has to be done en masse, or you are blown off as a crackpot, but if enough people did it, it would garner attention from networks. Personally, I think a lot of the problem is that the "newscasters/readers" are trying to become celebrities. The more outrageous they become, they more popular they become. Unfortunately it takes real effort for them to cross the line (see Glenn Beck)
The PEOPLE must demand better from newsgathering and reporting organizations; put advertisers on notice that we are sick of being soiled and disrespected; we have choices and will take our viewership -- and cash elsewhere. The real power is ours, not theirs.
The sound of Ker-ching, ker-ching (or the lack of it) is the only sweet noise or terrible silence that gets their attention.
I cannot understand why this incompetent person can still be on TV, with all her past mistakes and arrogance. Anyone having her on a show lose ratings.