Coming to NBC: 'To Catch a Cheney' by Jeff Cohen

[Demeter]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/02/17


I have a plan to get NBC out of last place in the ratings. I'm promising blockbuster audience and international buzz. As a once disgruntled ex-employee, I now just want to be positive and help NBC, which needs all the free advice it can get.

Here's my idea: A series of NBC News primetime specials featuring spectacular ambushes of big-time criminals lured into what they expect to be pleasurable surroundings. But, with hidden cameras whirring, the startled villain is dramatically confronted with the evidence of his massive crimes as millions of viewers look on in scorn and righteous amusement.

If it sounds familiar, it's because NBC News has scored huge ratings with its "To Catch a Predator" sleaze-fest - in which potential sex offenders by the bushel were lured via the Internet to what they thought would be sex with kids and instead got caught by NBC cameras and cops in hiding.

But my proposal doesn't involve sex abusers. I'm talking about men who've launched illegal war, mass murder, torture, dictatorship. And they're household names.

Before you laugh off my proposal for "To Catch a War Criminal," check out last week's New York Times report by Brian Stelter: "On Trail of War Criminals, NBC News Is Criticized."

NBC is already at work - "To Catch a Predator"-style - on a two-bit version of my idea, and not surprisingly, they may be screwing it up. For over a year, a camera crew has been on the trail of alleged war criminals; in December, an NBC producer confronted a Maryland foreign language professor who NBC sources accuse of war crimes in Rwanda.

But there are problems - as often happens when you leave the "news" to NBC. Human Rights Watch questions the evidence against the professor, who's been seeking asylum in the U.S. A journalistic ethicist questions NBC's close relations with Rwanda's government.

So here's my advice: Go big. Go after superstars and only well-documented, slam-dunk cases of war crimes.

Coming to NBC next week: "To Catch a Cheney." Next month: "To Catch a Kissinger."

[MinM]

1. On the Media: Prosecutorial Discretion

When it comes to investigative reporting of criminal activity, news organizations have traditionally worked parallel to, not in collaboration with, law enforcement, lest journalists be viewed as agents of the government. Why then is NBC ambushing alleged war criminals with foreign prosecutors in tow? Goucher College president Sanford Ungar discusses the day a news crew arrived on his campus...
http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2009/02/13/03

[Demeter]

2. I Heard that Report

It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world