Nancy Grace Is Always Outraged
In her self-assured and opinionated way, Nancy Grace became part of the Trenton Duckett story again Friday. The CNN Headline News talk-show host defended her tough questioning of the boy’s mother, Melinda, shortly before the Leesburg woman killed herself on Sept. 8….”I think it happened because Melinda Duckett may very well know where her son was,” Grace said in an interview with Chris Cuomo on ABC’s Good Morning America. “She even told her mother, just before she killed herself, ‘Trenton’s not coming home, Mom. He’s not coming home.’ How, Chris, would she have known that? If anything, I would suggest guilt caused her to commit suicide.”
I ‘m sick to death of loud-mouthed, boorish, egomaniacal television personalities who think that being given their own show gives them license to use and abuse their guests in the pursuit of ever-higher ratings. Nancy Grace is a former prosecutor who seems to think that she’s chasing the truth and that said chase gives her the right to use any means she deems necessary to reach her goal…which, ultimately, is achieving Arbitron ratings high enough to justify and ensure her continued existence and employment.
Grace certainly isn’t the only boorish, self-absorbed loudmouth on television…just one of the worst. There are times when she makes Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh look like paragons of civility- no mean feat. Her ratings are built on her self-styled reputation for being a bulldog. While there’s certainly nothing wrong with asking tough questions, a television show is not and should not be a cross-examination- especially when your staff apparently tricks a guest into appearing on the show. Grace’s producers told Melinda Duckett that they just wanted to help her find her missing child. She had no idea that she was walking into an ambush. Regardless of how you feel about Duckett, here’s a mother whose child is missing; you’d think a modicum of compassion might be the order of the day.
Did questions about Duckett’s involvement in her child’s disappearance give Grace license to treat Duckett as if she was guilty until proven innocent? Not from where I sit; especially when Grace’s producers tricked Duckett into coming onto the show in the first place.
Jerry Eubank, Melinda’s father, told the Sentinel on Thursday that the Grace interview “destroyed” his daughter. Melinda was tricked into appearing on the show by producers who told her they just wanted to help find the child, he said. Her funeral was Friday.
“She disintegrated. The show absolutely destroyed her,” Eubank said. “No question.
“You don’t destroy somebody’s life to get ratings.”
Says who? In today’s uber-competitive 500-channels-and-nothing-on market, a talk show host doesn’t separate herself from the pack by passing out hugs and chocolates. No, it’s controversy and outrageousness that sells, and let’s face it; we enjoy watching the suffering of others. It makes us feel SO much better about our own miserable, pointless existence.
On Good Morning America, Grace told Cuomo:
“Today the family is blaming me. And I hate what they’re going through, but I would suggest their efforts go towards finding this baby.”
Because, after all, when you’re chasing the truth, you have to ask the tough questions, no?
It might perhaps be a stretch to connect the dots between Duckett’s appearance on Nancy Grace’s show and her taking her own life, but a reasonable person could expect that Grace might at least be questioning her role in this tragedy. Guess again; Grace, ever the egotist, clearly sees herself as blameless. I suppose when you see yourself as a humble Servant of the Truth, there IS no questioning necessary. After all, if Duckett wasn’t guilty, why did she feel the need to take her own life?
Is it just me, or is Nancy Grace actually Bill O’Reilly in drag?
Trenton, a 2-year-old who was reported missing Aug. 27, has been a frequent topic for Grace. The former prosecutor first covered the story Aug. 30. Her show featuring Melinda Duckett was taped Sept. 7 and aired the next night, hours after the mother killed herself. Grace returned to the story every night this week.
On Friday, Grace spent the bulk of her show on the missing boy. She questioned his father, Joshua Duckett, who was attending a prayer vigil in Leesburg.
“She covers a case until it’s solved,” Headline News spokeswoman Janine Iamunno said.
And what of the media attention? “It’s not her focus,” Iamunno said.
Nancy Grace doesn’t care. She’s chasing the truth…and she’s a DUMB@$$. Oh…and she has ratings to chase.
“I call her insufferable,” said Jeff Cohen, author of Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media. “I don’t want to point fingers, but she’s quick to do it.”
Cohen has appeared as a pundit on MSNBC, Fox News Channel and CNN. He said Grace reflected broadcast news’ troubling slide into entertainment.
“We don’t know what role the interview played, if any,” Cohen said of the suicide. “This isn’t entertainment. These are two people [Trenton’s parents] who lost a kid. Their lives aren’t a TV show. Nancy Grace can’t help by interviewing these distraught people. Police and counselors talking to this woman, and the people around her, can do it with sensitivity. Nancy Grace, by remote from TV land, can’t see that.”
With prosecutorial flair in the Sept. 7 interview, Grace repeatedly pressed Melinda Duckett about not taking a polygraph test. The host sought details about the mother’s whereabouts before the kidnapping. When Duckett refused, Grace showed frustration.
Since when should someone be required to take a polygraph test? When last I checked, and Grace, being an attorney, should know this, our legal system holds one innocent until proven otherwise. Melissa Duckett was under no obligation to take a polygraph. Her refusal to do so is indicative of nothing, unless you’re Nancy Grace, and you’re willing to seize on anything in order to justify crucifying a guest on your show.
“Ms. Duckett, you are not telling us for a reason. What is the reason?” Grace asked. “You refuse to give even the simplest facts of where you were with your son before he went missing.”
I don’t whether Melinda Duckett is guilty or not, but I can’t help feeling as if Nancy Grace has Duckett’s blood on her hands. Grace treated Duckett as if she was on her show with an obligation to demonstrate her innoncence, and when Duckett refused to play along, Grace went for the throat. It was an inexcusable, explotiative use of a mother’s anguish in the quest for a ratings bonanza. Now that Grace is being called out for being the devoid of compassion bully she is, she feels it appropriate to trot out the “Well, if she wasn’t guilty, none of this would have happened” argument.
A reasonable person might wonder how Nancy Grace sleeps at night. Sadly, though, being a DUMB@$$ means caring for nothing beyond your Arbitron ratings and justifying your continued existence and employment. It also means apparently being devoid of anything resembling a conscience or a sense of decency. But, hey….she’s chasing the truth, right??
