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Nancy Grace: Reality Check

By Jeralyn, Section Media
Posted on Wed Mar 01, 2006 at 01:11:44 PM EST
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The New York Observer has an article about discrepencies between Nancy Grace's version of her fiance's murder and the version told by the documents and trial participants.

I'm all for criticizing Nancy Grace's point of view and her "fry 'em" mentality and even her sometimes overly melodramatic delivery style, but I have to say, aside from misrepresenting, perhaps unknowingly, the prior record of the man who killed her fiance, there's very little here.

I'd much rather see an article that takes her to task for her program format, the show's failure to journalistically inform and her one-sidedness in favor of victims, than for minor details in how her fiance got murdered, even if she does claim it was the hook in deciding to go to law school and become a prosecutor.

The real problem is that guilt sells in this country while innocence doesn't. Grace takes advantage of that phenomenon to the utmost, but then so do many other tv personalities.

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    • Nancy Grace: Reality Check | 15 comments (15 topical)
    Re: Nancy Grace: Reality Check (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Mar 01, 2006 at 01:31:00 PM EST
    but I have to say, aside from misrepresenting, perhaps unknowingly, the prior record of the man who killed her fiance, there's very little here. That's not a small thing. She's made very specific statements about the killer that have no basis in reality, and has confirmed that she hasn't even bothered to research whether the statements she made are true. At this point, it seems to me that she's profiting from this tragedy.

    Re: Nancy Grace: Reality Check (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Mar 01, 2006 at 01:33:58 PM EST
    Of course she's profiting from the tragedy. She always has. It's her way of gaining credibility with victims. I'm not defending her. I'm just saying in the grand scheme of all things wrong with Nancy Grace, this one isn't high on my list.

    Re: Nancy Grace: Reality Check (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Mar 01, 2006 at 02:03:31 PM EST
    I find it surprising and enlightening, that after all of this time, and in the course of writing a book about it, she never looked at the actual record.

    Re: Nancy Grace: Reality Check (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Mar 01, 2006 at 02:13:33 PM EST
    What's the difference between this misrepresention and that of James Frey?

    Re: Nancy Grace: Reality Check (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Mar 01, 2006 at 03:20:20 PM EST
    It's really worse than that - she has expressed her contempt for the criminal justice system and defense attorneys is based on her personal experience as a victim of crime, and then embellished the case in question. She has stated deliberation took days, when they took hours. She has said the DA did not seek the death penalty, when he did. She has said that the defendant's defense was that they had the wrong guy, when the defendant never made any such claim, he had confessed, and the DA had a reliable witness. That's no small distortion, that implies she wasn't paying any attention at all to the case, and yet, somehow from it she gleaned a deep contempt for all defense attorneys.

    Re: Nancy Grace: Reality Check (none / 0) (#6)
    by Ray Radlein on Wed Mar 01, 2006 at 05:21:02 PM EST
    More to the point, she claimed that he was a repeat offender, and that he should never have been in position to commit the crime, as he should have been in jail; that is a large part of the basis on which she indicts The System as being complicit in her fiancee's death. The fact that the killer had no prior arrests or convictions would seem to undermine that part of her story quite a lot. I find it interesting that, while the defense attorney in the case watches her show, the actual prosecutor involved appears, from his comments, to have pretty much the same objections to it ("I don't like the format") as Jeralyn does.

    Re: Nancy Grace: Reality Check (none / 0) (#7)
    by Quaker in a Basement on Wed Mar 01, 2006 at 05:55:22 PM EST
    Say, TL, that's mighty generous coming from someone Ms. Grace equates with a Nazi prison camp guard.

    Re: Nancy Grace: Reality Check (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Mar 01, 2006 at 07:19:06 PM EST
    I wish it was more widely known about her ethical problems that she had as a prosecutor: Wikipedia article That's really disturbing to me, though I know people who still wouldn't care and would figure that all the defendants deserved to go to jail anyway.

    Re: Nancy Grace: Reality Check (none / 0) (#9)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Mar 01, 2006 at 07:48:08 PM EST
    She earned herself worst person in the world from KO tonight.

    Re: Nancy Grace: Reality Check (none / 0) (#10)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 02, 2006 at 06:07:03 AM EST
    I cannot stand Nancy Grace. This situation is worse than James Frey because it is ongoing. She continues to state the same misinformation.

    Re: Nancy Grace: Reality Check (none / 0) (#11)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 02, 2006 at 07:07:36 AM EST
    The problem is that Nancy Grace has presented the death of her fiance as the result of a repeat offender who went unpunished. And used that portrayal as the basis of a thesis, propounded on her TV show, that the U.S. justice system unfairly coddles the criminals, and mistreats the victims. The story does not fit the thesis, which is why it's important to expose it as a lie. According to the web 'expose' of Grace, the man who killed Grace's fiance was a co-worker of the fiance, was apprehended and tried quickly, found guilty and punished.

    Re: Nancy Grace: Reality Check (none / 0) (#12)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 02, 2006 at 07:14:08 AM EST
    I don't even understand the point of some of the lies, like her lie about her fiance's age. What purpose does that serve? I can see where she's going with the age of the offender and his track record, but some of the other lies don't even make sense. It just makes you wonder how much of a grasp on reality she actually has. charlie, you mentioned that she made KO's Worst Person list, what was the specific reason? Or was it just her general behavior?

    Re: Nancy Grace: Reality Check (none / 0) (#13)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Mar 02, 2006 at 07:21:03 AM EST
    It was for her exploitation of this issue. Sorry for not being more specific about that. C&L's got it.

    Re: Nancy Grace: Reality Check (none / 0) (#14)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 03:31:12 AM EST
    While I agree that her distortions aren't exactly outright lies and have little bearing on her career I do think that it says something very important about the Victims' Rights Movement. This is a movement that isn't just arguing in favor of greater access to the system for victims of crime (usually, after all, V-Rights refers to the family's of victims anyhow) but actually actively alleges that the victim's personal experience represents a more valid form of truth than the legal system can afford. Grace never attempted to look at the documents to make sure she had the facts right because the facts matter less than her emotions of outrage and violation. In order for victims' rights to have any meaning, the system must continually fail to punish wrongdoers. So, Grace invented a fantasy-world in which "The System" was responsible for taking her fiance away -- and this justified her questionable practices as a prosecutor and is the very foundation for her entire on-air personality, in which the legal evidence available in, say, the Natalee Holloway case matter much less than Natalee's mother's "feelings" about the case. A cult of victimhood is essential to right-wing politics, which rejects democracy and legal fairness because it fails to deliver "justice." It is, unfortunately, only a short hop from Grace's made-up version of her victimhood to totalitarian legal theories. Nonetheless, I still think Nancy is a one of the funniest people on TV.

    Re: Nancy Grace: Reality Check (none / 0) (#15)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 03:53:24 AM EST
    Yeah, she's a phony, self-promoting loon, alright. Damn, you were a great catcher. Just a natural born ballplayer.

    Nancy Grace: Reality Check | 15 comments (15 topical)