Only in America Can We Find a New Way to Beat an Old Story Into the Ground Again.

JonBenet Ramsey. A tragic story and while this terrible event played out a thousand miles away, it managed to make my life miserable in Memphis. I admit I hate to see anything bad happen to children, especially when it's caused by an adult. I mean, come on, they're children. let them be young and as carefree as they can be. They grow up too fast as it is.
JonBenet Ramsey was only six years old when she was found beaten and strangled around Christmas. Christmas is usually a slow news day and just abbout anything that happens can become big news. I've always said, "it's all about timing."
From the news reports, JBR's mother who participated in pageants, had dressed her up like a little doll for child beauty pageants, perhaps trying to fulfill some long-lost dream of her own. I personally think that's kind of tragic in itself but that's a different story for a different time.
IMHO, the JBR story signaled the major transition to tabloid news coverage by main media outlets. While this had some possible lurid angles with the parents being accused at some point in time, it was in fact a LOCAL story. It happened in the Denver area and again, while it was tragic, it shouldn't have gone much beyond that area after the first week. A bunch of kids weren't gunned down at school or blown up in a federal building. JBR was a local story that became tabloid fodder on a national level.
I grew to dread having to read the inevitable JBR stories that peppered our morning and noon newscasts. They were always there and after a while the story of a dead little girl in Denver took on a life of its own. News magazines did extensive stories on parents who push children into pageants and various competitions and if there was an angle to cover, somebody covered it. Later there would be other stories involving high profile beauties. While I got tired of the extensive coverage of Princess Diana's death, she was a legitimate international figure. As for JFK Jr., he was more famous for who his parents were and the tragedies in their lives. I did have an interest in his death as it was related to flying and general aviation.
I never understood the hoopla over the Scott Petersen murder case. Remember him? His pregnant wife disappeared and was later found in the San Francisco Bay. He was having an affair. Bottom line: this was a local story that got national attention. Other than the fact it had a couple of twists, it was a murder case like what we have in Memphis (I'm sad to say) on a regular basis. But it happened during a slow news week. I will never truly understand why we gave it so much coverage on the local level in Memphis. It made as much sense as running a convenience store robbery from Australia (which we did more than once) because the video looked good. Big deal. Who really cared.
So now JonBenet Ramsey's alledged killer is in custody ten years after the fact. Everybody who runs some kind of news is running the story. Even National Public Radio is running the story ad naseum. I'm proud the killer was caught. I'm even more proud of the fact that I don't have to read it to somebody else.
The day that JonBenet Ramsey died, two tragedies occurred. An innocent little girl lost her life and never got the chance to grow up and realize her potential. And the standards of the news business pertaining to what constitutes news slipped several notches.
It was a sad day on both counts.