Friday, September 4th, 2009
Nancy Grace, SHUT YOUR MOUTH!
It’s most unfortunate to observe that the entirety of news reporting is based upon depressing issues. Murders, rapes, and robberies are what thrives the nightly news. That is obvious, and it requires little investigation. As people sit down to watch their tube and see the latest brutality, the ratings go up at exactly the same time the paycheck does. This phenomenon is most commonly referred to as sensationalism. And it is accepted by nearly all.
For this reason alone I can not blame Nancy Grace, the host of HLN’s syndicated night time show of the same name, for making an undisclosed billion dollar paycheck. If she wants to make money off of dead babies and mutilated corpses, fine by me; it’s her right to do so.
But what does disgust me about this woman is not only the endless amount fake tears she gives us with every “sad story” that makes its way onto the wire, nor is it her blatant humiliation of every one of her guest speakers. But what does truly and utterly sicken me is the encompassment of both of these things added with the obsessive omission of any real objective reporting. Just watch a single episode. There will hardly be one without the shrilling voice of her speaking over one of her guests – who are there to give expertise advice on the given story. When the experts come on (the one’s she has invited) they will systematically be interrupted by shouts of “whoa, whoa, whoa.” Then she will proceed to give her own “expert advice”, which is, as anyone watches knows, is just vitriolic rants alluding to the guilt of the person on the screen.
So let us examine Ms. Grace’s “expertise.” In example, nobody can forget the amazing story of Elizabeth Smart. At fourteen years of age she was taken out of her home in Salt Lake City, Utah. She went missing for almost a whole year before finally being found alive and safe. Sometime during this whole ordeal a man named Richard Ricci was arrested and questioned about a possible role in the abduction. It was at this precise moment that Nancy Grace – who at this period was gradually gaining her nickname, Satan’s Special Girl – who demonstrated a perfect example of her own methodology. Ricci, she claimed, and I quote, was “guilty.” With no trial, and very little evidence to support the claim, Satan’s Little Girl made an absolute statement about a suspect who was still innocent under our Constitution.
Rather strong words coming from a former prosecutor who was known to be shady when having to cooperate with the defense. Refusing to hand over legal documents and condemning the person who appears to be the guiltiest seems to be right up her alley. Her assertion of Ricci’s guilt turned out to be absolutely untrue, and while it is sad that he died in custody, and unable to get an apology from the now “Fallen” Grace, this whole scenario fantastically confirmed the method in which she operates.
Essentially, it is “point fingers first, and dispel those who don’t point them at all”. And, as expected, this design can be expounded in several different ways. For instance: when she was granted the privilege to interview the freed Elizabeth Smart – no doubt still enduring severe mental trauma, even after three years – Ms. Grace repeatedly pressed her to answer explicit details of her horrifying experience. After her first questions only generated a perplexed look on Elizabeth’s face (a confused “of course I was scared” look) the diabolical daughter of Lucifer pressed on, despite the young woman not wanting to talk about the nightmare but instead trying to promote an upcoming sex registry bill. Finally, when questioned about the burqa she was forced to wear, Elizabeth was prompted to tell ‘ole Nancy that she didn’t appreciate having all those horrific memories being brought up. The now ashamed (or maybe it is that she has no shame at all) Ms. Grace followed with her trademark overdramatic sympathy. I can’t imagine a single regular viewer of her show now stilling believing in her pathetic act.
One more sample in which to demonstrate how her show is presented in the most grotesque sensationalized way is the scrolling headline that appears with every episode at the bottom of the screen. And to comment very directly on it, I shall say this: Breaking News is not something we found out a week ago! But yet she continues to roll it – all the while lacing her commentary with “news” left unconfirmed, and drama nobody believes is real.
But, however, out of all of this, the most prevalent illustration of her evil is in the way she selects her stories. What happened to her concern regarding the trial of “Tot Mom” Casey Anthony, or accused child murderer Melissa Huckaby when the story of Michael Jackson’s death went live? Who was keeping us updated on all those high-profile cases just before the King of Pop overdosed on his favorite drugs? The answer is as palpable as the ratings, and only shows Nancy Grace to be a fraud with synthetic emotions. We can again confirm this as we watch the very end of the show, and see Ms. Grace give passing mention to a child found alive, or U.S. casualties.(and only U.S. – no Iraqi child will be mentioned, for obvious conservative reasons) To quote an old internet cliché; Nancy Grace clearly has no Grace. Like some sort of vampire, she sucks the emotional energy out of these stories, and it might soon be that the latest sick bastard, Phillip Garrido, will be discarded when she is “finished” with him.
Now; nobody expects her to be purely objective. She doesn’t pretend to be, and besides, it’s a rare thing these days anyways. And although she is not the only one to use this pseudo-reporting, she is the most exemplary. But, as I now try to emphasize, this hyper sensationalism now deserves a new definition. For there are intuitions in this world that construct for there selves a system that makes money off of war; off of laws; and off of suffering. The example in this essay can certainly be held in the same category. It is a syndrome, as will as a complex, which is innate in human greed, and held by many a rich man and woman, and it will perverse the way a moral World should work. It is the Misery Industrial Complex.
There might be no more need to further skewer the reputation of Nancy Grace. I’m definitely not the first person to do so. She has already brought upon her own lawsuit, a number of insults from her own staff, and even a website appropriately titled “Nancy Grace Must Die” (it’s not mine). The greatest thing we can wish for now – simply for the sake of Universality – is that when Ms. Grace does die, she will have her death exploited in the most grotesque fashion, and make the next bitch a lot of money.
