Casey Anthony: Could the story change the way TV journalism works?
I’ve heard journalists dismiss the Casey Anthony story as a soap opera unworthy of the public’s fascination.
Yet the long-running Anthony saga could change TV journalism in sweeping ways.
ABC News announced today it’s doing away with checkbook journalism, the practice of paying money to those who are interviewed. You can credit that change in large part to the embarrassment ABC suffered when it was revealed in 2010 that the Disney-owned network paid $200,000 to Anthony in 2008 to license photos and video. ABC News made that deal with defense attorney Jose Baez. Anthony was later charged in her daughter Caylee’s death.
ABC News’ change of heart about how it does business comes as networks are talking to Baez about an Anthony interview after her acquittal earlier this month. Could ABC’s decision prompt similar changes at CBS and NBC?
We can hope. Many were appalled last year at the revelation that ABC News, in effect, had paid for Anthony’s defense.
Many were appalled by Anthony’s acquittal earlier this month and have pressed for Caylee’s Law, prompting a discussion about the legislation’s merits.
Many viewers are promoting boycotts to keep Anthony, her defense team or her family from profiting off the tragedy.
The Anthony story may not have the scope of the Washington budget battle, war or natural disasters. Some journalists have even lectured readers that they should be interested in other stories.
But the Anthony saga connected with readers and viewers because it focused on family, the central issue in most people’s lives.
Beyond that, the story has unfolded like a mystery novel with amazing twists. There have been fascinating and confounding characters. The story initiated wide discussion about the justice system, public officials and the journalism business. Not bad for a story that supposedly was just a soap opera.
Many readers have told us repeatedly they are interested in the story. If we in the journalism business listened to the public more often, maybe our business wouldn’t be in such trouble.
Casey Anthony: How serious are Jose Baez’s talks with networks?
Casey Anthony’s defense attorney Jose Baez issued a statement Friday: “Contrary to recent published reports, I am not negotiating paid interviews with anyone.”
But what is he negotiating?
The New York Post on Sunday reported that Baez “has been living like a king in New York City, eating steak dinners with Matt Lauer and sleeping at the Mandarin Oriental — while network reps jostle to sign him as a legal eagle to eventually score the big interview.”
And that interview would be with Anthony, who was acquitted July 5 of first-degree murder in the death of her daughter, Caylee. Anthony has been hidden from public view since leaving Orange County Jail a week ago.
But don’t expect to hear from Anthony soon. Baez has indicated to network representatives that Anthony isn’t likely to give an interview for six to nine months, the Post reported.
Do the networks want to do business with Baez in hopes of landing Anthony?
CBS has seemed a definite no, saying it was not licensing any materials from Anthony and it was not courting Baez to become a legal analyst.
ABC negotiated a $200,000 deal with Baez in 2008 before Anthony was charged in her daughter’s death. That deal, revealed in 2010, set off a furor over journalistic ethics and practices.
A source at that network says ABC won’t become involved in a bidding war for an Anthony interview.
NBC acknowledged that it had put up Baez in the New York hotel, but called the stay a standard booking practice. An NBC spokeswoman said, “We’ve talked with Baez about getting an interview with Casey Anthony, but only under NBC News standards and conditions — no payment and absolutely no job offers for any member of her defense team.”
Doesn’t sound as if Baez will get a job from NBC — steak dinners and a hotel room, yes, but no job.
The Casey Anthony story has given us an inside look at network practices in a way few stories have. What next will we learn?
David McCullough: I admire Barack Obama very much
David McCullough, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Harry Truman and John Adams, had good things to say about President Barack Obama in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria this morning.
“I admire him very much,” McCullough said of Obama. “His time in office presented him with problems such as very few presidents have ever had to address. And given the complexity and the gravity of those problems, I think he’s handled himself very well. My hat goes off to him, my heart goes out to him.”
McCullough singled out an attribute in great presidents: “the capacity to move the country to do better than it thinks it can” and to do that through language.
McCullough praised Truman as one of the greatest presidents. “He said, ‘I never forget where I came [from] — who I was, where I came from and where I would go back to,’ ” McCullough said. “Now that’s a man who knows exactly who he is. He’s not craving this adoration and limelight in order to feel good about himself. He didn’t want the job. It was thrust upon him.”
The historian called George Washington the greatest president because “he set the standards for behavior, integrity and patriotism of the best kind, not the flag-waving kind, but true love of county.”
McCullough was a guest on “Fareed Zakaria GPS.”
‘Cowboys & Aliens’ premiere on E!’s red carpet tonight
Noah Ringer, left, and Harrison Ford in 'Cowboys & Aliens.' Photo credit: Zade Rosenthal/Courtesy of Universal Studios and DreamWorks
The previews suggest that “Cowboys & Aliens” could be one of the summer’s biggest movies.
After all, the movie offers Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde and extraterrestrials in the Old West.
You can catch the livestream premiere from Comic-Con at eonline.com. The fun on “Live From the Red Carpet” starts at 10 p.m. ET tonight.
E!’s Ben Lyons and Catt Sadler will report. You will see director Jon Favreau plus stars Craig, Ford and Wilde. The livestream also will be available on the Live From the Red Carpet app.
The livestream fun continues on the “Live From the Red Carpet: The Syfy/E! Comic-Con Party” at midnight ET. E!’s Lyons and Syfy’s Jael de Pardo co-host.
Or you could catch the “Cowboys & Aliens” fun at livestream.com/summerblockbusters.
‘The Walking Dead’ will return Oct. 16
“The Walking Dead” begins its second season at 9 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 16, on AMC.
The date was announced today at Comic-Con in San Diego. AMC also shared a four-minute trailer of the new season.
The drama, one of last season’s best newcomers, depicts a zombie apocalypse in chilling, vivid terms. There will be 13 new episodes in the second season.
Charlie Collier, AMC’s president, said in a release: “When we last left the cast of ‘The Walking Dead,’ they were in the midst of a high-intensity struggle to survive. In season two, they are on the move and suffice it to say, things have not gotten any easier. We’re ecstatic to have more than twice the amount of episodes for the fans as we did in season one.”
AMC will use “The Walking Dead” to start the channel’s 15th annual Fearfest, which will run through Oct. 31.
Lady Gaga to judge ‘So You Think You Can Dance’
Lady Gaga visits the SiriusXM studios on Monday in New York. Photo credit: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images
Haven’t been keeping up with “So You Think You Can Dance” this summer?
Fox is bringing in a big incentive to watch next week: Lady Gaga.
Gaga and Rob Marshall, director of the Oscar-winning “Chicago,” will be guest judges and assess the eight finalists at 8 p.m. Wednesday on WOFL-Channel 35.
Gaga and dance group LXD will perform on the results show at 8 p.m. Thursday.
The eight finalists are Jordan Casanova, Tadd Gadduang, Marko Germar, Ricky Jaime, Caitlynn Lawson, Jess LeProtto, Sasha Mallory and Melanie Moore. The All-Star Partners performing next week will be Lauren Froderman, Anya Garnis, Jaimie Goodwin, Lauren Gottlieb, Neil Haskell, Ivan Koumaev, Pasha Kovalev and Ade Obayomi.
The ejected dancers last night were Clarice Ordaz, 19, of Whittier, Calif., and Mitchell Kelly, 20, of Chicago. Making the decision on their ouster were Nigel Lythgoe, Mary Murphy and guest judge Neil Patrick Harris.
Will you be watching Lady Gaga?
Casey Anthony: Geraldo Rivera calls her ‘most reviled acquitted defendant,’ and he’s never talked to her
Geraldo Rivera at the Casey Anthony murder trial in June. Photo credit: Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel
Casey Anthony is the “most reviled acquitted defendant,” even more so than O.J. Simpson or Michael Jackson, Geraldo Rivera said on Fox News Channel this morning.
“We feel she is a murderer who escaped the death penalty,” Rivera said.
But Rivera stressed: “I have never spoken to Casey Anthony. I don’t know where she is. She’s not on my boat. She’s not in my back yard.”
Still, the perception that Rivera might be sheltering Anthony is costing him. Three women told Rivera’s wife they won’t bring their children to a birthday party party for the Riveras’ 6-year-old later this month because the women think Anthony is at the house.
Rivera has landed several interviews with Jose Baez, Anthony’s defense attorney. And Rivera has complained that the state overcharged Anthony by going after the death penalty for her. She was acquitted July 5 of first-degree murder in the death of her daughter, Caylee.
Rivera says the state’s contention that Anthony made 84 chloroform searches on the computer figures into the public’s intense hatred of her. A state expert has said he was mistaken and that only one search for chloroform was made. Rivera this morning blasted the prosecution about the 84 searches, yet he added, “I am of the mind set, let sleeping dogs lie. The verdict is in.”
Rivera urged the public to shun Anthony, refuse to buy any book she writes and boycott any project she backs.
“Let the Constitution apply even to unpopular people,” Rivera said on Fox News. “No matter how you feel about her, they didn’t come close to convicting her.”
Rivera also has written about the Anthony case on Fox News Latino.
Casey Anthony: George, Cindy and WFTV send messages
George and Cindy Anthony arrive at the July 7 sentencing hearing for Casey Anthony. Photo credit: Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel
George and Cindy Anthony long to talk to Casey Anthony, the couple’s attorney told WESH-Channel 2 tonight.
“It’s good to hear she’s safe, but they want to make sure,” Mark Lippman told WESH’s Bob Kealing. “It’s still their daughter, no matter what.”
How interested are you in the Anthony family drama?
Lippman said the parents never wanted their daughter to face the death penalty. “I’m hoping Casey knows that and believes that,” Lippman said. Casey Anthony was acquitted July 5 of first-degree murder in the death of her daughter, 2-year-old Caylee.
If Casey won’t call her parents, George and Cindy will send messages via the media. Lippman said the Anthonys “may move on without Casey in their lives.”
George and Cindy Anthony plan to roll out a new foundation, Caylee’s Fund, within 10 days, Lippman told WESH. They will support grandparents’ rights and Caylee’s Law.
George and Cindy Anthony also want all the personal items from the trial, and the couple will either keep them or destroy them, Lippman told WESH’s Amanda Ober. “We don’t want to leave anything out there that could possibly be sold on eBay or privately,” Lippman said.
In other Anthony news:
WFTV-Channel 9 keeps showing its exclusive footage of a shielded woman running yesterday at Orlando Executive Airport. Defense attorney Jose Baez told WFTV that it was a hoax and the woman wasn’t Casey Anthony. Baez made the same statement to WKMG-Channel 6. WESH cited sources saying that the woman wasn’t Anthony.
But WFTV news director Bob Jordan stands by repeating the footage.
In an email, Jordan wrote me: “It’s news. It was either Casey Anthony or lawyers once associated with her defense team staging a prank. It is indisputable that the plane that landed at Orlando Executive Airport Tuesday is owned by a lawyer associated with the Anthony defense; that it was the very same plane that flew Ms. Anthony out of Orlando last Sunday morning; that the men escorting ‘the woman’ were lawyers associated with the Baez law firm; and that one of the vehicles we followed from Skywitness 9 is registered to one of those lawyers. The news WFTV reported is accurate. Claims made by others involved in this incident don’t pass the sniff test.”
And Jordan added, “Is there any doubt, Hal, that any other TV news operation in this town wouldn’t have run the same pictures if they’d gotten them?”
What do you think?
In a report, WFTV’s Jeff Deal noted that although Baez said the airport incident “was all just a hoax, it appears it is now no laughing matter.” People unhappy with Anthony’s acquittal are phoning threats to defense attorney Cheney Mason’s home.
WOFL-Channel 35 played Shirley Mason’s 911 call in which she said the family was getting a lot of threatening calls. “The Masons believe that these people that are harassing them are getting their home address and phone number off of Facebook,” Holly Bristow reported. Cheney Mason said the Facebook page was started without permission.
WKMG-Channel 6 reported that Shirley Mason said the couple received so many calls Tuesday night that they couldn’t get any sleep and disconnected the phones.
One threat read, “Your scumbag husband and Baez better sleep with one eye open.”
“It is a crime to make phone calls like this,” Bristow said.
Casey Anthony: She’s not in Orlando; she’s not under that jacket
John Bradley testifies June 8 at the Casey Anthony trial. Photo credit: Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel
The latest edition of “Where’s Casey?” played out on local newscasts tonight.
WFTV-Channel 9 showed a woman — hidden under a jacket — being rushed by former attorney Todd Macaluso into Orlando Executive Airport.
WFTV’s Jeff Deal caught up with Macaluso at the airport before being kicked off the property.
Defense attorney Jose Baez later sent a text message to WFTV that Macaluso was having fun with the reporter and that the hidden woman was not Casey. “We wouldn’t expect that he [Baez] wouldn’t tell us if this is Casey Anthony,” Deal said.
But Baez gave an interview to WKMG-Channel 6. “She’s not here in Orlando,” Baez said, adding that he was talking to end the speculation.
Anchor Lauren Rowe asked if Anthony was getting counseling. ”We’re doing the best we can under the circumstances to help her in any way we can,” Baez said. “That’s pretty much all I can say.”
Anthony was acquitted July 5 of first-degree murder in the death of her daughter, Caylee.
WESH-Channel 2 anchor Martha Sugalski cited “multiple sources” that Anthony wasn’t the woman in the airport footage. “At least one Orlando TV station aired video of a woman wearing jeans and a pink T-shirt running from the plane with a jacket over her head,” Sugalski said, a reference to WFTV. The shielded woman wasn’t Anthony but a member of the plane’s crew, those multiple sources told WESH.
In other Anthony news, a software designer who testifed for the prosecution has acknowledged that he was mistaken to say there were 84 searches for chloroform on the Anthony home computer.
Rather, John Bradley said there was just one search, and he told the prosecution about his realization before the trial ended. “I was prepared if she was convicted to call the defense team,” Bradley told WESH.
Yet WKMG’s Rowe noted that trial followers knew “there was really only one visit to a page dealing with chloroform, not 84 as the prosecution initially claimed.” She wanted to know why Bradley was talking now. “He’s actually trying to clear his conscience,” WKMG’s Louis Bolden said.
WESH’s Bob Kealing read the state attorney’s response to Bradley’s comment. “Court records show that the defense was completely aware of the issue, utilizing these facts at trial,” the statement read.
WESH then showed footage of Baez’s closing argument, when he condemned the evidence of 84 searches.
Kealing also highlighted that Bradley sent some of his corrected information to the wrong email address and that the state didn’t receive his comments until July 4. Anthony was acquitted the next day.
The legal analysts on WOFL-Channel 35 said Bradley’s admission was very serious. “It should be upsetting to all of us,” attorney Diana Tennis said. She said that Bradley tried to clear up the matter, and the issue needed investigation.
Attorney Hal Uhrig added, “Because the verdict went the way it did, it’s just an interesting conversation this afternoon. Had it gone the other way, this may well have been grounds to do the whole thing all over again.”
What do you think?
Casey Anthony: Heard about Casey World? A new foundation?
Mark Lippman, left, with George and Cindy Anthony at the July 7 sentencing hearing for Casey Anthony. Photo credit: Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel
Casey Anthony may be out of sight, but she is not out of mind.
Local stations provided updates this afternoon:
***WFTV-Channel 9’s Mary Nguyen reported that George and Cindy Anthony, Casey’s parents, are setting up a foundation called Caylee’s Fund to focus on grandparents’ rights. Mark Lippman, the couple’s attorney, told WFTV that the Anthonys plan to be the nonprofit’s officers and draw salaries because they are unable to work. Nguyen said the new nonprofit would be separate from the Caylee Marie Anthony Foundation, which will remain active.
***WFTV’s Kathi Belich reported that Casey Anthony boarded a plane owned Todd Macaluso, her former attorney, about 3 a.m. Sunday. “Macaluso is a pilot. No flight plans were filed for his plane from July 12th until yesterday afternoon, when records showit flew from Santa Ana, Calif., to San Carlos, [Calif.],” Belich said.
***WKMG-Channel 6’s Mike DeForest talked to defense attorney Cheney Mason, who said he watched Anthony’s release from an undisclosed location. “The good part is that she’s gone, she’s safe, she’s protected, nobody will find her,” Mason said, adding that she wasn’t at his house.
Mason also said that Anthony had to come out of “Casey World” — her lies about Caylee’s death — to assist her attorneys in her defense. “She’s got a tough row ahead of her,” Mason told DeForest. “But she’ll make it.” Anthony was acquitted two weeks ago of first-degree murder in Caylee’s death.
Mason said psychological counseling was “absolutely mandatory” for Anthony and that she had a breakthrough when a grief expert testified at trial.
“It was like Casey being brought out of Casey World into the real world,” Mason said. “She got quite emotional about, I think, having an introspection of her own conduct and behavior. … She’s having to deal with that. Casey World was changed, and we hoping she doesn’t regress into that dark place of denial and not remembering and not knowing and all the things that apparently were there. She’s quite a kid.”
Mason also talked to NBC’s Kerry Sanders and said that Anthony will stay in touch with only Mason or Jose Baez. Mental health professionals have volunteered to help her, Mason revealed. “She has her family, which she defines as us [the defense team],” Mason said.
Anthony expects nothing from her original family, Mason said. The veteran attorney took a swipe at George and Cindy Anthony for not helping act as decoys during Casey’s release from the Orange County Jail early Sunday.
But Lippman, the attorney for Casey’s parents, told WESH-Channel 2 they refused to be decoys because of safety concerns.
Mason stressed that Anthony isn’t at any of his properties. “We’re asking everybody to leave her alone,” Mason said. He said someone might find her her, but “they won’t be able to talk to her, and when they blink, she’ll be gone,” Mason said.
***WESH talked to Howard Marks, the attorney for Roy Kronk, the meter reader who found Caylee Anthony’s remains. Kronk is suing bounty hunter Leonard Padilla for defamation.
“For him [Kronk] to have go through the trashing that’s occurred in the national media by people like Padilla is simply unacceptable,” Marks said. Marks hinted that more suits could be coming against people who bashed Kronk.
***In talking to WKMG, Mason also said he has experience as an entertainment lawyer and could coordinate any future deals.
What do you think about these developments?