More Tim Goodman…
Following up on this, it looks like The San Francisco Chronicle’s Tim Goodman got part of his wish answered. So now he has new wishes…
So we got a little angry and righteous and bared our sensitive side on Wednesday and demanded that Nancy Grace, Greta Van Susteren and Rita Cosby come to San Francisco and cover heartbreaking urban crime right here rather than, say, Aruba. And damn if Grace didn’t take us up on it. Hmmm. Extrapolating from this heretofore untapped power of possibility, do you think it would work if we said, “Maury Povich and Connie Chung — slink away in the dead of night! Leave no note”? Or, even better, “Erica Hill — dinner with us at Boulevard!”
Pushing it?
I find Goodman to be somewhat elitist in his columns. I am old enough to remember when there were just three channels and only Cronkite, Brinkley and Howard K. Smith to bring us the news. They were covering stories about Watergate, the energy crisis, racial tension, and the attempted passage of the ERA;they also covered the kidnapping of Patty Hearst, the conviction of Jeffrey McDonald (the hansome Green Beret convicted of murder) and the murder of sitcom actor Bob Crane. The mixing of the serious and the sensational is nothing new (although Goodman is probably too young to remember).
The only difference now is that media is more diverse and competitive and there is a lot more time to fill. IMHO, I don’t have a problem necessarily with the Natalie Holloway and Laci Peterson coverage; these have become big stories that have captured the public’s interest. It is more useful, however, when the anchors can draw from these cases more serious conclusions about how crimes are solved and about our criminal justice system. I think Greta and Dan Abrams deserve credit for at least attempting to do this.
Comment by Scott — January 29, 2006 @ 2:42 pm