Monday, October 16, 2006

"360", "Larry King Live" and CNN hit a new low...


Anderson....seriously, no, no, no, no....NO!

CNN has decided they wanted a piece of the action with wacko (not an official medical term) John Mark Karr. "Larry King Live" will feature Karr's side of the story tonight at 9pm. You can email your questions now. Oh goody!

And because one hour of this crap isn't enough, "360" is going to tell us what makes this guy tick. Screw the population hitting 300,000,000...one sick child molester wannabe is so much more important.
Leave this craptastic reporting to FNC, they are used to giving people below level standards in reporting...oh yeah, the nut will be on Greta's show tonight too.

Some of the other networks and their take on Karr:

By DAVID BAUDER (Associated Press) - Talk-show host Keith Ablow said Friday that he's 'on the side of the angels,' protecting children from possible sexual predators by televising an hour-long interview with John Mark Karr next week.

Portions of the TV psychiatrist's interview with Karr were aired Friday on NBC's 'Today' show with more to come in the next few days. Karr, briefly a suspect in the death of child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, was freed from a California jail earlier this month when a child pornography case against him fell apart.

Karr's creepy celebrity made him a wanted man in the ratings-obsessed television world. He chose to give his first extended interview to Ablow, a therapist and self-help book author in the first year of a show designed to compete with 'Dr. Phil.' It is scheduled to air on Tuesday.

'I am baffled as to why anybody would consider this anything other than a public health or communications victory for the American people and for parents everywhere,' Ablow told The Associated Press.

It's a rare chance to see what's inside the mind of someone who has expressed a desire to have sexual contact with little girls, he said.

During the first three-quarters of a four-hour taping, Karr appeared completely normal, he said. 'The face that emerges after three hours is somebody who makes your skin crawl,' said Ablow.

It appeared last week that ABC's 'Good Morning America' had landed the first Karr interview. A day after he was released from jail Oct. 5, he was with ABC producers in a limousine as they drove by a San Francisco school where he used to work as a teacher's aide. Karr suddenly left the limo and approached the school, attracting police attention.

An ABC spokesman, Jeffrey Schneider, said that Karr's behavior 'gave us serious pause and ABC decided not to proceed with the interview.'

With 'GMA' out of the picture, 'Today' decided to jump in and feature Karr. On Friday, Matt Lauer interviewed Ablow and showed clips of the interview, and it is scheduled to be featured on 'Today' again on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday.

'I'm not a psychiatrist,' Lauer said after watching one clip. 'My take on him is this guy is more than a little off.'

The 'Today' executive producer, Jim Bell, was not available Friday to talk about why the show was doing four segments on Karr, a spokeswoman said.

Karr was not paid for the interview, said Laura Mandel, a spokeswoman for Telepictures, Ablow's producers. Telepictures did pay to fly Karr to New York and for his lodging and meals - standard in the talk show world, she said.

Ablow denied a report in The New York Post that Karr was given alcohol before his interview. Karr asked for white wine and was given white grape juice instead, he said. He was 'stone cold sober' and answered questions with no words slurred, Ablow said.

While he personally found the idea of a Karr interview 'vulgar' and dismissed the idea it had educational value, New York psychiatrist Alvin Rosenfeld said he saw nothing ethically wrong with it. And he said that if he had his own talk show, he'd probably do the same thing given the pressure for ratings.

Ablow's syndicated show has been on for a month and its ratings are roughly 25 percent lower than what was airing in its time slots a year earlier, said Bill Carroll, a syndication market expert for Katz Television. Those are the kind of numbers that put a show's survival in doubt - unless it gets a jolt of attention, he said.

Ablow said he's willing to debate anyone at any time about the propriety of giving Karr and his views a platform. The more people who know about Karr and what he thinks, the better, he said. To have the chance and not do it, his show 'would have been complicit in any abuse suffered by a young girl in the future at his hands,' he added.

'I believe that there's karma in the world and when you do the right thing you're rewarded for it and when you do the wrong thing you have to pay for it,' he said. 'We're on the side of the angels on this one.'

Screencap courtesy of bcfraggle.

7 comentarios:

Anonymous said...

Jade, thanks for your post. I learned of Karr on LKL last night and I just can't get it. Here's more on the topic of Karr interviews According to this article neither Diane Sawyer nor Barbara Walters "wanted any part of the Karr interview".
So are CNN standards lower? Is it all about ratings? I thought it's enough that guy will be on LKL, now they'll also talk about it on 360??? My only clue is they are trying to boost ratings to make up for spending a lot on Africa coverage and not getting goo ratings that week. Do they have to do it THIS way though? They must be really loosing hope in the society.
Sorry for my ranting, it really drives me crazy. Maybe they should be trying to get the viewer up to their level instead on getting down to the viewer's.

Anonymous said...

The funy thing is that not long ago, Anderson, while interviewing Jeffrey T. about Mark Karr's case, expressed he was sure they had not seen the end of Karr yet, and that maybe he will end up publishing a book. It seemed like Anderson disapproved of him.
No book, but yet all the attention given to him serves as a reward.The guy wanted to be famous, so here we are giving him what he wants.

I agree with you. This is sad, very sad and low! I guess at the end of the day ratings is all that matters! Well, maybe Anderson had to follow orders from above...

courtney01 said...

WHY?!?!?

Why Anderson, why? I'm so disappointed! It was bad enough that Larry King was giving this creep more air time, but to hear that Anderson and the 360 team are devoting even more makes me want to scream!

Jennifer said...

CNN is all a twitter about it as well...they've splashed a photo of the man on the front page.

Issues like this fuel the debate: when does news stop being the news and become entertainment?

courtney01 said...

I guess they're hoping this story will help them beat Fox and MSNBC.

Where is the line? Stories like this cross the line, in my opinion. But that's such a good question. Maybe we should do a feature on it for the website?

Anonymous said...

I feel bad for Anderson-- Last time Karr was mentioned on 360 AC basically said he was sick of the story & never wanted to speak of it again. The guy's just a nut who made a false confession, what else is there to say? If you listen to the Tom Joyner interview Anderson talks about having to do what he's told by CNN.

Anonymous said...

after a pretty pointless interview (IMHO) why do they start 360 from this? C'mon. There are more important news in the world, what was newsworthy in that interview to talk about it in 360?

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