Casey Anthony + Nancy Grace = National Ridiculousness

Its been a while since I last wrote, but that is mostly due to the subject.  If there aren't any interesting current issues going on, there isn't anything to write about.  The best that could have been done would be more on the Osama aftermath (and I already touched on that), US involvement in Libya, or Gas Prices.  That being said, the story of the Casey Anthony trial caught my eye.




I do not mean to disrespect the memory of Caylee Anthony, but was this really a national news story?  I do dislike how the media has often veered toward the sensational but there are reasons that many of those stories are popular.  Its the simple fact that they are out of the ordinary and their bizarre facts break the tension in our mundane lives.  The thing about Caylee Anthony's story is, its not even that uncommon.  Unfortunately, children go missing all the time.  While this appeals to the "this could happen to anyone" part of people's brains, how is it any different than the thousands of kids missing that are presumed dead?

Standard Fridge.  Body Parts Extra

A good example of how certain cases grab people is Anthony Sowell vs. Jeffrey Dahmer.  Sowell kidnapped, raped, and murdered at least a dozen women while Dahmer was convicted on 15 murders.  The Dahmer case was an immediate big story, while most people have not heard of Sowell outside of Cleveland where he committed his murders.  Why is this?  Its because he kept the skulls of his victims, kept body parts in his fridge and freezer, and may have practiced cannibalism and/or necrophilia.

Now back to the Caylee Anthony case.  There is nothing remotely intriguing about this looking at many of the previous trials that gained national notoriety.  I mean, they couldn't even definitely spell out the facts well enough to get an indictment.  Already within a year, the case was on America's Most Wanted and Nancy Grace was dubbing Casey Anthony the "tot mom".  This has been compared to the OJ Simpson trial, but there are some clear differences, first of all being those were two brutal murders, while this is one.

When OJ was on trial, he was being tried for the bloody murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.  The actual details of the death of Caylee Anthony were vague, and were certainly not as brutal as in the OJ case.  Still, Nancy Grace seemed like she couldn't go a month without a "tot mom" name drop.  Adding onto that, once people found out they went ballistic.  There were hundreds of people coming to the orange county courthouse trying to get a seat on the jury.  People were fighting in front of the courthouse just to get a seat.

Once people started to be interested, these news sources almost had to cover the story to have ratings.  Ratings blew up whenever this story was covered and it was "good business" to talk about it.  Instead of being objective about the proceedings, the media painted Casey guilty because it was what the public wanted.  People got very emotionally invested, as seen by the fights mentioned and the fact that Casey's father was getting death threats.  Once the Not Guilty verdict was delivered, there was an outcry even bigger than that in the OJ trial.  However, the OJ trial was definitely different in why it was not guilty.  In that trial, they got by on a couple technicalities, while the this case had serious holes, only circumstantial evidence, and no true motive.

Ironically, it was the lack of motive that may have intrigued people and that same lack of motive is what led to the acquittal.

The problem here is the media assassination (especially by people such as Nancy Grace) that had convicted Casey of being guilty of the crimes before the trial even started.  This significantly swayed public opinion towards the immense hatred against Casey, which caused the lynch mob that is existing now in the hearts and minds of those who got emotionally involved.

I am not at all surprised the media was at the crux of this.  When I first heard of the case, I thought "what did the media blow up this time...".  In theory, there is nothing terribly wrong about appealing to what the public wants and making Casey guilty (if she was guilty), but if she is innocent or found innocent, that is where you have the problem.