Grace drew an instant comparison between Houston’s death to those of Michael Jackson and Anna Nicole Smith. She then grew impatient with the suggestions that she may have simply died from mixing prescription drugs with alcohol: “I’d like to know who was around her, who, if anyone gave her drugs, following alcohol and drugs, and who let her slip, or pushed her, underneath that water? Apparently no signs of force or trauma to the body. Who let Whitney Houston go under her water?”
Of course nothing is more immediately suspicious to a trained eye than “no signs of force or trauma to the body.”
Grace’s snarling signature analysis has been an embarrassment for both journalists and lawyers alike. Her show requires a steady fare of murdered and missing victims as well as an open hostility to concepts of due process. However, CNN has continued to show an equally craven desire for ratings, including incorporating Grace on news shows as a legal analyst despite her history of unethical and abusive conduct both a prosecutor and later as an anchor.
Grace obviously appeals to a rather sad segment of our society who relish her vigilante-like take on criminal cases. However, CNN can hardly criticize rivals like Fox when it offers Grace nightly as a legal analyst. What is rather pathetic was CNN’s effort to reclaim some credibility after serving up this type of low-grade sensationalism. After Grace’s comments, CNN news anchor Don Lemon emphasized that “[t]his is not CNN’s reporting. We don’t know that to be true.” That sounds a lot like “this is really not true, we just offer it up for the ratings.”
I know many of the folks at CNN and respect them. They deserve better as do the viewers. However, CNN has to decide whether it is a journalistic enterprise or just Dancing With The Stars with a news crawler.
Source: L.A. Times