It was Andy Warhol who promised everyone their fifteen minutes of fame. What he didn’t say is that while some of us have our fame thrust upon us, others work hard to turn the spotlight.
That brings us to the pathetic life of 41-year old John Mark Karr, the American teacher living in Thailand who, through a series of bizarre emails sent to a stateside professor, admitted that he has a predilection for six-year old girls and admitted that he “accidentally” killed JonBenet Ramsey in her home ten years ago.
The initial media frenzy was understandable, given the nationwide coverage of the death of the little beauty queen, the fact that the confession came out of the blue and the fact that Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy had decided to press charges and have Karr brought back to the United States.
The All-News-All-The-Time cable networks went into overdrive, bringing in pundits to discuss everything from the nature of child abuse to the psychology of confessions.
Night after night, as Colorado investigators went to Thailand to retrieve their prize, the coverage detailed everything that happened, even to the point of announcing what Karr had to eat on the plane.
It made for some nice suspense in the middle of the doldrums of August until a funny thing happened on the way to the courtroom.
DNA evidence proved that Karr had nothing to do with the death of JonBenet, and DA Lacy promptly dropped the charges.
Not missing a beat, the news hounds rounded up the pundits again, this time to discuss the rationale behind giving false confessions to police.
All of this has renewed the glee that my brothers and sisters in the print media take in pointing out the often ridiculous extremes the news networks go to in an attempt to beat each other to the punch.
Scot Lehigh of the Boston Globe admitted to “wincing” at the TV coverage as it dragged on, calling it “ghoulish” to show photos of JonBenet and lamenting the perception that we really need to know what Karr was wearing for the plane ride home.
To those columnists I will say two things:
One-It’s not as if (as Lehigh also points out) newspapers didn’t cover the story.
Two-This time you’re right.
Few businesses are as cutthroat on a day-to-day basis as the 24-hour news game.
Bosses pay people to be first with stories that stir controversy.
Period.
But there are times when that quest to be first with the sordid details blinds the need for journalistic perspective, even common sense.
If I broadcasted every person who walked up to me with a confession over the years I would have solved the Hoffa murder and decloaked the JFK conspiracy by now.
We have a desire to be first in my business, but we have an obligation to be right and be in proper perspective.
First isn’t always best.