Reply #2: Well said, Stephen King!

[cynatnite]

If Trenton Duckett is dead, Nancy Grace is in the grotesque position of having to hope Mom did it. If not, the part Grace may have played in Duckett's death is almost beyond thinking about. If Duckett did kill Trenton (the police now call her the prime suspect), she's beyond the reach of the law and of no further help in finding the boy's body and easing the agony of his father or of his grieving relatives, and Ms. Grace almost certainly bears a responsibility for that, though she denies it.

Her network supported her decision to run the pre-suicide interview. The reason for that is in the numbers. Cable news is a Nielsen yard sale, but even so, sleaze sells. According to the AP, the death of Melinda Duckett (and the probable death of Trenton) has been good business for CNN Headline News and Nancy Grace. In recent months, Grace had been doing 534,000 viewers per night. In the days after Duckett's death, the show averaged 689,000.

One politics-and-business blog calls this ''the dead mother bounce.'' I call it ugly and shameful. As journalism it's immoral, and as entertainment, it's outright pimpery.

Totally agree!