The power of the Casey Anthony story
Jul 7, 2011, 9:46 AM | Updated: 10:19 am
Dave Ross Commentary – Listen: The power of the Casey Anthony story
HLN formerly headline News, which once broadcast as many headlines as possible, made the decision to become all about one headline — Casey Anthony — and ratings soared!
HLN’s star host Nancy Grace called Casey Tot Mom, and made the story so compelling with her nightly outrage that the rest of the media were pulled into orbit.
I admit that I myself, despite my passionless common sense, tuned in to that tedious sentencing hearing this morning for that one nugget of news that could be summarized in a few seconds.
She’s going to be out in a few days, that’s the news.
That’s the actual news; but you don’t just tune in for the news. You tune in to see Tot Mom — most hated woman in America. You tune in to to see whether she has makeup on today. What’s she whispering? Is her hair up or down — it was down, by the way, “Wearing the long mane” as they say on HLN.
Everybody had their breaking news alerts up. Fox had THE flashing police beacon going.
THAT is the power of storytelling.
Is this good? IS this BAD? I don’t know. But I do know that it’s REAL. It works!
And the story goes on. Next phase: who cashes in? One juror got a trip to Disneyland for talking to ABC; another promises to talk for $50,000.
And of course Casey is free to write her book and, after a descent interval, pull Oprah out of retirement.
And strangely, it gives me hope — that this will keep us so distracted through the summer the even if the nation does slip into default, we won’t notice.
Go away. You’re boring us!
-
Tune in to KIRO Newsradio weekdays at 5am for Dave Ross on Seattle's Morning News.
