Stephen King (And John Grishom) Slap Down Nancy Grace

[walldude]

I saw this in this weeks Entertainment Weekly Where King has a bi-weekly column. Chud has a full repost:

http://chud.com/forums/showthread.php?t=95336


"....Nancy Grace — puffy-cheeked, helmet-haired, heavy-lidded, strangely expressionless even during her frequent rages — conveys by body language alone the idea that we're all guilty of something...and she knows it. Her specialty is the sorts of tabloid crimes The National Enquirer used to cover in the bad old days, when car-crash photos and Mexican decapitations were staples. George Pelecanos, James Ellroy, and Michael Connelly are able to elevate such horrors to art; Nancy Grace degrades them so deeply into the fleapit of the imagination that a week of her makes Dick Cheney highlight reels look good. And like Puritan elders, Wild West hanging judges, or Madame Defarge knitting in the shadow of the guillotine, Nancy Grace gives the sense that somehow, someway, she just knows whodunit.

But not even veteran Grace watchers could have been prepared for this autumn's spectacular, when Ms. Grace kicked around the dead body of Melinda Duckett for either 30 or 60 minutes a night, depending on who else in this great land of ours was being stabbed, raped, or abducted...."

[graywarrior]

1. Yipes!

[cynatnite]

2. Well said, Stephen King!

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!

[aquart]

6. Who is Melinda Duckett?

[cynatnite]

10. She was suspected of her son's disappearance...

she appeared on Nancy Grace. Nancy went on a rampage and yelled at her about where she was that day. Melinda Duckett hadn't adequately explained herself and people were suspicious.

The following day, Melinda Duckett shot herself.

It doesn't appear anyone will ever know what happened to the boy. If Melinda Duckett did have something to do with her son's disappearance I would have prefered her to sit in prison for the rest of her life. IMO, Nancy Grace contributed to that suicide.

What makes this worse is that CNN Headline news and Nancy Grace made money not just off Trenton's death, but also off this woman's suicide. Ratings=money.

[walldude]

13. He mentions in the article that she normally draws

534,000 viewers per night. In the days after Duckett's death, the show averaged 689,000.. On top of that she had the father on a few days later... Boy was she ever sweet to him.

[cynatnite]

17. Geez, what a hag...

:puke:

[madmusic]

19. Yeah, in that phony, condescending voice of hers.

Fingernails on a chalkboard.

[AspenRose]

3. I don't know how she sleeps at night.

eom

[SeattleGirl]

4. She doesn't. I believe she returns to her coffin at sunrise.

Or wraps her claws around the post, and folds her wings over her body.......

[AspenRose]

5. Stupid dupe

eom

[SaveOurDemocracy]

7. King knows horror ...

and she's one sick bitch.


"In the increasingly weird world of infotainment, she is the belle of the Freakers Ball."~~Stephen King :rofl:

[ovidsen]

8. King nails it. She's a vulture. n/t

[Akoto]

9. Absolutely true. Two thumbs up for Mr. King. n/t

[Disturbed]

11. Nancy Disgarce is a ghoul.

She feeds on death.

[Akoto]

12. Especially true, I think, after the Duckett incident.

She brought Melinda Duckett on the show after her two year old son went missing, presumably to get the word out, and then ambushed her. Nancy Grace was absolutely brutal to Duckett, who would not answer certain questions only because that's what her lawyer told her to do.

The next day, Duckett committed suicide.

I honestly believe that Nancy Grace has Melinda Duckett's blood on her hands. Now, ironically, it's in Nancy's best interests to hope that Duckett did commit the crime. If she didn't, then Nancy almost certainly drove her to suicide.

[madmusic]

14. The Running Bitch

"Thirty-five years ago I wrote a novel called The Running Man, in which viewers watched fugitives run until they were executed on national television. I never expected to see anything remotely like it for real, but I never imagined Nancy Grace...and I've got a pretty nasty imagination."

[Selatius]

15. Could the Duckett family sue Grace for wrongful death if...

it turns out the mother didn't kill her son or was responsible for his disappearance?

[walldude]

16. I think it could go beyond that...

beyond hoping for the fathers sake that the kid is still alive, if the kid turns up, Grace will be ruined. Right now the only thing keeping her on the air is the fact that the kid is still missing.

[madmusic]

18. And the police naming Duckett as the "prime suspect."

Probably for the sake of Grace.