Rush to Judgment?
09/27/06 04:58 PM
By ED BARK
Wednesday's kamikaze coverage of Terrell Owens' latest misadventure begs the question of whether people really live or die with what the Dallas Cowboys do or don't do.
Although totally unscientific, an NBC 5 online survey on the day's events and non-events perhaps should serve as a window on the real world.
"Do you think Terrell Owens tried to commit suicide?" the station asked. As of 5 p.m. Wednesday, these were the answers:
Yes -- 122 (14%)
No -- 234 (27%)
I don't care -- 525 (60%)
Channel 5 also spotlighted the poll on some of its newscasts, perhaps prompting some viewers to laugh out loud. "I don't care" likely won't be reflected in Wednesday's local newscast ratings, which should spike upward. But some viewers perhaps quickly wearied of hyped-up logos such as "T.O. Turmoil" (on CBS 11) and "T.O. Troubles" (NBC 5). Suddenly lost in the T.O. shuffle was consummate gentleman and golf legend Byron Nelson, whose death at age 94 Tuesday prompted well-deserved tributes on all the stations. What a contrast the two of them make. But Nelson's impending funeral drew scant attention Wednesday. Instead we got the dirt on Owens, all day and into the night.
Channel 8 reporter Rebecca Lopez jump-started the story after obtaining an initial police report that showed Owens saying "Yes" when asked if he had attempted to harm himself by taking an overdose of prescription medication. The report's first sentence, later blacked out, used the words "attempting suicide."
Lopez can hardly be blamed for citing an official police report as the basis for what essentially then was reported as fact by the four major local TV news stations. So the chase was on to determine Owens' whereabouts, how this would affect the Cowboys, etc., etc. Then the story U-turned when the man himself held a 2:30 p.m. press conference carried live on Channels 4, 5, 8, 11 and 21, ESPN, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News Channel.
"The rumor of me taking 35 pills is absurd," he said, blaming his hospital trip on a bad mix of fitness supplements and pain killers that left him "kinda out of it" in his words.
Owens flatly denied trying to commit suicide, and one had to believe him in this case. You don't participate in that afternoon's practice and then seem clear as a bell just 18 hours after what would have been a big-time overdose. Nor do you get released from the hospital that quickly. And this is coming from someone who as a college student witnessed plenty of overdoses during five years as an orderly in a Madison, Wis. emergency room.
"He looked in good spirits. He looked fine," ESPN's Michael Smith said minutes after the public comments from both Owens and his publicist, Kim Etheredge, who had phoned 911 in what apparently was a panic. "It sounds like a case of where amid the confusion of a rather intense situation there might have been some miscommunication."
Most of TV's never-ending stream of commentators seemed to share that assessment after assuming the very worst just hours earlier.
We do, of course, live in an age where the news cycle has been accelerated to Indy 500 speeds. Still, times like these cry out for local TV reporters with reasonably long memories. They might have warned viewers that not all police reports are what they seem, particularly when it concerns the Cowboys.
Rewind back to early 1997, when Dallas police reacted to a shoddy Channel 5 story by releasing a police report from a woman who had charged receiver Michael Irvin and lineman Erik Williams of gang-raping her at gunpoint while videotaping the assault. No charges had been filed against either Cowboys player, but that didn't stop the police and the media from essentially convicting them. The upshot: police determined months later that the supposed victim had made it all up. She then was charged with filing a false police report that police never should have released in the first place until thoroughly investigating her credibility.
Channel 8's always opinionated Dale Hansen, who sensitively eulogized Byron Nelson on Tuesday's 10 p.m. newscast, found himself being branded an insensitive enemy of the mentally ill for much of Wednesday. He had the temerity to say that he just didn't understand guys like Owens. Nor did he relate to the so-called mind-numbing pressures of today's millionaire athletes. People struggling to make ends meet are under far more duress, he said.
Actually, Hansen shouldn't have been put in that position. The foundation for Wednesday's saturation coverage -- Terrell Owens' suicide attempt -- had all but crumbled by nightfall. And a 6:30 p.m. update of that Channel 5 online poll shows that even more people just can't be bothered.
"Do you think Terrell Owens tried to commit suicide?"
Yes -- 159 (14%)
No -- 297 (25%)
I don't care -- 713 (61%)
Wednesday's kamikaze coverage of Terrell Owens' latest misadventure begs the question of whether people really live or die with what the Dallas Cowboys do or don't do.
Although totally unscientific, an NBC 5 online survey on the day's events and non-events perhaps should serve as a window on the real world.
"Do you think Terrell Owens tried to commit suicide?" the station asked. As of 5 p.m. Wednesday, these were the answers:
Yes -- 122 (14%)
No -- 234 (27%)
I don't care -- 525 (60%)
Channel 5 also spotlighted the poll on some of its newscasts, perhaps prompting some viewers to laugh out loud. "I don't care" likely won't be reflected in Wednesday's local newscast ratings, which should spike upward. But some viewers perhaps quickly wearied of hyped-up logos such as "T.O. Turmoil" (on CBS 11) and "T.O. Troubles" (NBC 5). Suddenly lost in the T.O. shuffle was consummate gentleman and golf legend Byron Nelson, whose death at age 94 Tuesday prompted well-deserved tributes on all the stations. What a contrast the two of them make. But Nelson's impending funeral drew scant attention Wednesday. Instead we got the dirt on Owens, all day and into the night.
Channel 8 reporter Rebecca Lopez jump-started the story after obtaining an initial police report that showed Owens saying "Yes" when asked if he had attempted to harm himself by taking an overdose of prescription medication. The report's first sentence, later blacked out, used the words "attempting suicide."
Lopez can hardly be blamed for citing an official police report as the basis for what essentially then was reported as fact by the four major local TV news stations. So the chase was on to determine Owens' whereabouts, how this would affect the Cowboys, etc., etc. Then the story U-turned when the man himself held a 2:30 p.m. press conference carried live on Channels 4, 5, 8, 11 and 21, ESPN, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News Channel.
"The rumor of me taking 35 pills is absurd," he said, blaming his hospital trip on a bad mix of fitness supplements and pain killers that left him "kinda out of it" in his words.
Owens flatly denied trying to commit suicide, and one had to believe him in this case. You don't participate in that afternoon's practice and then seem clear as a bell just 18 hours after what would have been a big-time overdose. Nor do you get released from the hospital that quickly. And this is coming from someone who as a college student witnessed plenty of overdoses during five years as an orderly in a Madison, Wis. emergency room.
"He looked in good spirits. He looked fine," ESPN's Michael Smith said minutes after the public comments from both Owens and his publicist, Kim Etheredge, who had phoned 911 in what apparently was a panic. "It sounds like a case of where amid the confusion of a rather intense situation there might have been some miscommunication."
Most of TV's never-ending stream of commentators seemed to share that assessment after assuming the very worst just hours earlier.
We do, of course, live in an age where the news cycle has been accelerated to Indy 500 speeds. Still, times like these cry out for local TV reporters with reasonably long memories. They might have warned viewers that not all police reports are what they seem, particularly when it concerns the Cowboys.
Rewind back to early 1997, when Dallas police reacted to a shoddy Channel 5 story by releasing a police report from a woman who had charged receiver Michael Irvin and lineman Erik Williams of gang-raping her at gunpoint while videotaping the assault. No charges had been filed against either Cowboys player, but that didn't stop the police and the media from essentially convicting them. The upshot: police determined months later that the supposed victim had made it all up. She then was charged with filing a false police report that police never should have released in the first place until thoroughly investigating her credibility.
Channel 8's always opinionated Dale Hansen, who sensitively eulogized Byron Nelson on Tuesday's 10 p.m. newscast, found himself being branded an insensitive enemy of the mentally ill for much of Wednesday. He had the temerity to say that he just didn't understand guys like Owens. Nor did he relate to the so-called mind-numbing pressures of today's millionaire athletes. People struggling to make ends meet are under far more duress, he said.
Actually, Hansen shouldn't have been put in that position. The foundation for Wednesday's saturation coverage -- Terrell Owens' suicide attempt -- had all but crumbled by nightfall. And a 6:30 p.m. update of that Channel 5 online poll shows that even more people just can't be bothered.
"Do you think Terrell Owens tried to commit suicide?"
Yes -- 159 (14%)
No -- 297 (25%)
I don't care -- 713 (61%)