Michelle Burwell Ethics in Journalism Nancy Grace: A Call to the Return of Ethics in Journalism
From the beginning of U.S. history, one of journalism’s primary purposes was to serve as the watchdog of our nation by looking out for the most basic rights and interests of the people. But the function which once seemed to monitor wrongdoers with Pit-bull-esque strength has been reduced to a mere yappy Chihuahua. In an article titled “Is Journalism Losing Its Place in the Boisterous Public Forum,” journalist Christine Chinlund wrote, “On any given day, television offers more than 175 hours of news and public affairs programming of which Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel inform us, 40 percent comes in the form of talk shows. Add to that the online chatter of the Internet (granted a different sort of volume, but news/noise nonetheless), and we have a din that needs some taming.” And many experts believe Nancy Grace, host of “The Nancy Grace Show,” is just one of those journalists has forgotten about the most basic principles of news and consequently has reduced her show to a mere cluttering of the airwaves with her opinion and commentary. A “tabloid justice era” Nancy Grace, a CNN Headline News host since 2005, is one of those many journalists teetering between what some see as hard-hitting journalism and others view as complete sensationalism. Before securing a spot on the CNN lineup, Grace commentated on a Court TV program titled “Nancy Grace: Closing Arguments.” And prior to Court TV, Grace spent ten years as special prosecutor of major felonies in the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office in Atlanta where she never lost a case. Some would say Nancy put in her time in the working field
and this real-life courtroom experience certainly qualified her to host a CNN news program that covers crime and the justice system. But some critics have claimed that Grace has forgotten the crucial point of journalism which is to cover stories—giving a balance perspective of the facts of each issue— and has instead moved towards commentating on them. Her intellectual voice has been muzzled by what Richard L. Fox and Robert W. Van Sickel have termed the “tabloid justice era,” in their book, Tabloid Justice: Criminal Justice in an Age of Media Frenzy. The two defined this era as a time “in which the mass media, in both their traditional and emerging forms, now tend to focus on the sensationalistic, personal, lurid and tawdry details of unusual and high-profile trials and investigations.” The authors depict this era as journalism that presents “events through a focus on the emotional, personal, human aspects of a story, often at the expense of context, background, structure, and analysis.” And there is undeniable evidence that Grace has partly, if not completely, fallen into this trap of the sensational, tabloid era of journalism. Much of the sensationalism in her coverage can be viewed directly on the CNN website by simply noting Grace’s story choices and the extensiveness of coverage devoted to each story. On the site Grace has dedicated two of the four headline stories to celebrities involved in or afflicted by criminal activity, including O.J. Simpson and Jennifer Hudson. Visitors to the website don’t have to read anything past the headlines to witness the use sensational journalism. The headlines on O.J. Simpson’s armed robbery trial coverage read, “Kato says Simpson has ‘karma’ to blame,” and “The trial that sent O.J. Simpson to prison” in an effort to remind readers of Simpson’s murder trial which was deemed the “trial of the century,” but had nothing to do with this most recent case. Another headline on Grace’s website reads, “Boy found half-naked,
chained” and next to the headline is a still image from the CNN coverage of Grace holding up a shackle and chain, certainly used in an effort to incite emotion in viewers. Dr. Richard Campbell, Provost of the College of Arts and Science at Miami University, feels that this extensive coverage dedicated to high profile and unusual crimes is not an accurate representation of society. “She [Nancy] has decided to go after very popular and high profile crime stories in order to secure a niche audience,” Campbell said. “My big criticism with that technique is that it over represents that kind of coverage. There’s a lack of balance in that type of reporting.” But news analysts still remain conflicted. Is Grace asking the hard-hitting questions, or the most sensational ones? Experts have come to point to two particular criminal cases, the Trenton Duckett case and the Elizabeth Smart case, in which Grace’s interview tactics of the people involved seemed to teeter between hard-hitting and sensationalism, or what the ABC News article “Nancy Grace Ripped After Missing Boy’s Mom Kills Herself ” has deemed as the line between “interview and inquisition.” Trenton Duckett was just two when his mom, Melinda Duckett, discovered him missing from their Florida home on August 27, 2006. Just a little over a week after his disappearance, Grace interviewed both Melinda and Josh Duckett on her show. According to transcripts from the interview, Grace repeatedly asked Melina if she had taken a polygraph test to confirm her story of the last hours before Trenton went missing. Every time Grace mentioned the polygraph test, Melinda skirted her way around the question making statements such as, “Everything that they have done and asked and everything, we`ve cooperated with.” After a few more badgering questions Grace states, “Melinda, my producers tell me police
say they offered you a polygraph and you haven`t taken it yet.” But Melinda continues to circumvent Grace’s questioning. The day after the interview, and hours before the show was to air on television, Melinda Duckett committed suicide. Many have pointed to Grace’s line of questioning, tone of accusation and in particular her irate barraging of Melinda near the end of the interview, as being the primary cause behind the mother’s suicide. In an interview with the Associated Press Melinda’s grandfather, Bill Eubank, blamed Melinda’s suicide on the intrusive media in general, but more notably Grace herself. "Nancy Grace and the others, they just bashed her to the end," Eubank said. But Grace did not feel her line of questioning was out of line and in an interview with ABC News’ Chris Cuomo she even went as far to say, "If anything, I would suggest that guilt made her commit suicide.” Grace instead saw herself as the hard-hitting journalist who asked the questions that others were afraid to ask. Without expressing any remorse for the Duckett family, Grace instead asked viewers to look at the circumstances of the case and to question why an innocent person would take their own life. In the same ABC News interview Grace stated, "To suggest that a 15 or 20 minute interview can cause someone to commit suicide is focusing on the wrong thing.” And Hub Brown, a Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications professor, seemed to agree that reporters should take a sort of no-holds-bar stance when doing investigative reporting. In an interview with ABC News’ Bob Jamieson, Brown stated, “What’s troubling to me is that when you’re doing these interviews you have to balance whether you’re doing harm to people involved.” However, although Brown was reluctant to say whether or not Grace’s interview with Duckett crossed an ethical line in journalism he did say, “In cable
television now, it's a shout fest, law of the jungle, survival of the loudest. It might make good television. It doesn't make good journalism.” Another case in which Grace has been accused of asking questions aimed at evoking emotion rather than exercising investigative reporting was in an interview with Elizabeth Smart. In June of 2002 Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her home in Salt Lake City, Utah. A media frenzy immediately ensued. In 2003, nine months after the young girl went missing, Elizabeth was found alive. She had been abducted by Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Ileen Barzee, a couple who had sought to make her a polygamous child bride. In 2006 Elizabeth Smart and her father agreed to an interview with Nancy Grace regarding a bill they were pushing to get passed in congress that would help protect other child victims. Though the interview was intended to be strictly about the congressional bill, Grace asked Smart several personally probing questions about the kidnapping incident. According to the interview transcripts Grace asked, “Did your kidnappers tell you they would hurt you or your family if you tried to get away?” Smart responded, “You know, they did. And I really am here to support the bill and not to go into what—you know, what happened to me… I’m not here to give an interview on that. I’m here to help push this bill through.” But Grace was relentless and continued to probe Smart on her experience with the kidnappers. Then Grace asked what most have deemed the most sensational and irrelevant question of them all stating, “You know, a lot of people have seen shots of you wearing a burqa. How did you see out of that thing?” Smart replied, “You know, I`m really not going to talk about this at this time. I mean, that`s something I just don`t even look back at. And I really— I really— to be frankly honest, I really don`t appreciate you bringing all this up.” But it was too late. Grace
had done exactly what she wanted. She had stirred enough emotion in Smart to get the one teaser sound-bite she needed to entice viewers to tune into the interview. But Campbell feels that this “talking-heads journalism,” where hosts bring guest on and basically let them loose to rant their opinions on any given case or subject matter, is anything but good journalism. “If you want it to be anything approaching good journalism you want opinions driven by evidence,” Campbell said. “It’s Grace’s responsibility, that if she’s going to cover a case, to give hard facts.” And Campbell points out that Grace often forgets the importance of the facts. But is this “tabloid justice era” really new? Since broadcast stations have switched to 24-hour news coverage, sensational journalism and “tabloid justice” has eroded nearly every news station. It’s easy for journalists to fill gaps between real news stories with commentary and opinion news. “Stations are being driven on 247 cable, and with internet as well, there is a need for a lot of content,” said Campbell. “And it’s cheap to fill that space with opinion.” And according to the book Tabloid Justice: Criminal Justice in an Age of Media Frenzy, CNN, the news station that has given Grace a forum in which to articulate her opinions, was the first major broadcast station to start up 24-hour news channels meaning they’ve had had more time than all other major networks to fill its station with commentary programs. However, despite this booming era of sensational journalism, the concept isn’t new. In fact, this style of news reporting can be found as far back as 1888, when serial killer Jack the Ripper killed five prostitutes in the East End of London. In journalist L. Perry Curtis Jr.’s article, “Murder News as Cultural Event in Victorian England,” Curtis wrote, “By engaging in graphically detailed reporting that fascinated the public, some newspapers served to inform as
well as to sermonize about the “danger to law and order” the Ripper murders presented.” Curtis concludes that “…because much remained unknown about the unsolved Ripper case, newspapers filled in the blanks with the speculation and editorial asides. The distorting effects of all this filtering prevent us from ever attaining a complete grasp of the original events, despite the apparent authority of each newspaper account.” In journalist Richard D. Altick’s “Victorian Studies in Scarlet (1970),” Altick analyzed the media coverage of over 15 high-profile murders between 1849 and 1903. “By featuring certain homicides and by employing reporters who specialized in murder, the London press had by midcentury succeeded in taking this subgenre of news out of the hands of publishers of ha’penny broadsides or street cocks and had begun to captivate a huge audience—young and old, male and female alike –by means of blood-curdling stories of violence and mystery.” In other words, journalists seemed to be giving readers what they wanted. And Campbell believes this desire for a “good story” is innate in humans and continues to be a primary news feature utilized by journalists to draw in readers/ viewers. Can the newscasters be blamed for reporting on what sells? According to research published in the Tabloid Justice: Criminal Justice in an Age of Media Frenzy, ratings of 24-hour news channels between 1995 and 1998 showed that each of the major broadcast channels (CourtTV, CNBC, CNN and MSNBC) had their highest ratings in 1995 which was the year most known for its extensive coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial. While CNN received a rating of 573 (average number of households in thousands viewing each station at any given time) in 1995, it received a rating of just 360 in 1998. And, compared to their 1995 yearly average of 573, CNN had a rating of 1,841 on the day of the infamous Bronco chase, 1,248 on the day of the trial’s opening arguments and 1,705 on the day the verdict was
announced. This case in particular seemed to open the floodgates for “tabloid justice” and sensational crime reporting. The statistics spoke for themselves—crime sold. In journalist Thomas B. Rosenstiel’s article “Talk-Show Journalism” he writes, “Taken together, the talk-show culture is changing print journalism, downgrading the traditional skills of reporting and a devotion to neutrality and objectivity while rewarding the skills that win talkshow audiences—a knack for asserting opinion, thinking in sound bites, and honing an attentiongetting public persona.” Rosenstiel continued by saying, “With time, it also became clear that the more gusto with which reporters gave their opinions, the bigger the audience… “Agronsky and Co.,” with its sometimes arcane arguments, was quickly surpassed in ratings by “The McLaughlin Group,” an opinion/ entertainment show that replaces serious public policy debate with a brand of intellectual slapstick.” It became more and more evident that the softer the news became, the more people wanted to watch. And the more people that tuned in to watch these fluffy news stories the more, Rosenstiel noted, reporters were “rewarded for their opinions than for their ability to uncover what has happened, the “spin” that reporters put on events becomes more important than the events themselves.” Is there hope for the future of journalism? As of now, Dr. Campbell believes it is only going to get worse. We are going to continue to see more opinion driven news shows. “We’ve transitioned from the ‘culture of verification’ to the ‘culture of assertion,’” said Campbell. “And it’s getting even worse with internet blog cites because there is too much need for content and it’s easy to fill the space with opinion… research is expensive.” However, Campbell feels that this trend towards opinion-driven news can be reversed and it needs to start with the journalist. Campbell says regardless of ratings and the rigor that comes
with doing accurate research and reporting, it’s the journalists job to provide the people with the fundamentals of journalism—truthful and balanced news. “It’s Grace’s responsibility, that if she’s going to cover a case to give the facts,” Campbell said. And while Campbell feels there is hope for the future of journalism, he stated that if we want the industry to serve its intended purposes once more, “We need new business models.” Chinlund also agrees that the future of journalism lies in the hands of the journalist. Chinlund said, “With the expanded audience and jacked-up volume comes an added responsibility to keep the conversation focused on the fact track, to nurture the best of what this new super-forum can offer and prevent the worst from infecting it.” In journalists’ Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel’s essay, “Journalists should keep the news in proportion and make it comprehensive,” the two wrote that journalists have been distracted by popularity and ratings, and have thus forgotten about the true purpose of journalism. They issue most of their criticism towards journalists, such as Grace, who seem to be more worried by covering what sells than giving an accurate representation of the news for the day. Kovach and Rosenstiel wrote, “Journalists who devote far more time and space to a sensational trial or celebrity scandal than they know it deserves—because they think it will sell— are like cartographers who drew England and Spain the size of Greenland because it was popular. It may make short-term economic sense but it misleads the traveler and eventually destroys the credibility of the mapmaker. The journalist who writes what “she just knows to be true,” without really checking first, is like the artist who draws sea monsters in the distant corners of the New World.” They too feel we shouldn’t lose hope for the future of journalism but that change is necessary and sensationalist journalists, such as Nancy Grace, have lost track of journalism’s most important responsibilities, thus making progress difficult.
Works Cited Cinlund, Christine. “Is Journalism Losing Its Place in the Boisterous Public Forum?”(pg. e26) NeimanReports. Summer 2001. .
Curtis, L. Perry Jr. Violence in the Media. “Murder News as Cultural Event in Victorian England” (pg. 30) Farmington Hills, MI. The Gale Group. 2008.
Fox, Richard L. and Van Sickel, Robert W. Tabloid Justice: Criminal Justice in an Age of Media Frenzy. Boulder, CO. Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 2001.
Grace, Nancy. “2- Year Old Disappears From Bedroom (Transcripts).” CNN.com Sept. 8, 2006. < http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0609/08/ng.01.html>. Grace, Nancy. “Interview with Elizabeth Smart (Transcripts).” CNN.com July 18, 2006. < http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0607/18/ng.01.html>.
Jamieson, Bob. “Nancy Grace Ripped After Missing Boy’s Mom Kills Herself.” ABC News. Sept. 14, 2006. < http://abcnews.go.com/US/Story?id=2440803&page=3>.
Kovach, Bill and Rosenstiel, Tom. The Elements of Journalism. “Journalists should keep the news in proportion and make it comprehensive.” Nieman Reports Summer 2001. . “Nancy Grace: Headline News.” CNN.com. < http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/nancy. grace/>. “Nancy Grace Says ‘Guilt’ Likely Made Mother Commit Suicide.” ABC News. Sept. 15, 2006. .
Rosenstiel, Thomas B. The Future of News. “Talk-Show Journalism.” (pg. 73-82) Washington, D.C. The Woodrow Wilson Center Press. 1992.