Flashback: CNN also had sympathy for Michael Vick

[alp227]

So a lot is being made of CNN's coverage of the Steubenville HS rape case because of reporters lamenting how the boys' lives have been ruined by the criminal convictions. Well, I did a little research and found that CNN also had some of the same sympathy for pro football quarterback Michael Vick back when he was charged with animal abuse.

From 8/24/07 CNN Newsroom:

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: The plea agreement...really says that Michael Vick agrees -- plead guilty in count one of this indictment, charging the defendant with conspiracy to travel in interstate commerce, in aid of unlawful activities, basically, animal fighting, dog fighting.

He faces possibly a maximum of five years on this, but in the plea agreement is a recommendation that the judge go for obviously a lesser sentence than that. What is unsaid in all of this is what happens in terms of his NFL career, whether or not he does play again and when he'll play again. And all of that has to be worked out with the NFL.

But he got two things in this plea agreement. I think we can basically say. Number one, he does not admit to gambling on the dogs. That would be a serious violation for the NFL to have to overlook, if he ever came back.

DON LEMON: Right.

GRIFFIN: Number two, he doesn't fully admit to killing a dog, although in the wording in the very last page of the statement of fact, it says that dogs were killed and that the defendant, Vick, agrees and stipulates that these dogs all died as a result of the collective efforts of his co-defendants, and himself. Which seems to be a very legal fine line he's trying to wriggle through here, basically admitting that dogs were killed and he some part of the dogs being killed. LEMON: He didn't necessarily --

GRIFFIN: But he's not coming out and saying what his other defendants have said in this case, which is Michael Vick held the dog underwater until he drowned. Michael Vick electrocuted a dog. So that, at least, in legal papers, he does not admit to physically a taking a dog and killing a dog.

See the problem here? The reporter (supposedly an "investigative correspondent&quot chose to lead the story circling around Vick and saves the gruesome details (WHY the NFL would be disgusted w/Vick) for last.

But it got worse on 8/27/07, as Kyra Phillips (of her open mic disrupting a Bush speech fame) opened a report about the Vick case:

...he once eluded tacklers with shocking ease, but Michael Vick went down today in the crushing grip of the law, suspended Friday by the NFL. Vick pleaded guilty in Richmond, Virginia, to a federal dog fighting conspiracy charge. Sentencing set for December 10.

His image shattered, his fortune threatened, his career possibly over, Vick said later it's all his fault.

Again, all about Vick the NFL star who's about to go to prison, not a word about the consequences of his actions on the dogs he abused!

Sigh. Typical media malpractice and dumbing-down.

At least CNN had a sober, neutral, fact-focused report back on 7/19/03 when Kobe Bryant was initially charged with rape (but prosecutors would drop the case due to lack of evidence/an uncooperative accuser). In 2003, Ted Turner was still an executive with the parent company of CNN, and he resigned from the board of directors in 2006, the year Glenn Beck began his career at CNN Headline News. I think the CNN brand took a very very deep nosedive in the post-Ted Turner era.

[HeiressofBickworth]

1. Yes, I've noticed this odd trend

and after giving it some thought, I think I have distilled it down to one factor: the pursuit of money in this country is considered a primary right and no one, no thing, no action, no law should stand in the way of someone making money. It is the underlying theory on the deregulation of businesses and eliminating workers rights, environmental law, consumer protection laws and so on. It's at the forefront of the idea that Wall Street, corporations and others are too big to prosecute. And once having achieved money, no thing, person, law or tax should come between a person and their money. That drives the Republicans to resist any increase in taxes for the wealthy -- a tax that might get in the way of some rich person and their god-given right to their money. All this consideration of not parting a person and their money is strictly reserved for the 1%, of course. The rest of us can go piss up a rope.

It all makes me sick.