I still feel that way: Free speech, would be jeopardized if people could sue TV stations over what they put on the air, and what such airings may or may not inspire people to do.
But Grace is surely trying my patience, and testing the sort of vile behavior that can or should be protected by the First Amendment. Truth to tell, I am boiling as I read this item by Rebecca Dana, which appears in the December 4 issue of The New York Observer. I will quote extensively:
"In the days after Melinda Duckett’s suicide, Ms. Grace utilized the services of Anna Cordasco, who is the managing director of the New York firm Citigate Sard Verbinnen, which specializes in below-the-radar corporate-image resuscitation."
OK, that's bad enough. After Duckett killed herself on September 7, Grace went ahead and ran the segment anyway, in which Grace all but accused the obviously troubled woman of doing away with her little son Trevor. And so this fancy p.r. firm is hired to step in. That stuff happens--we know that.
But here's the Observer story gets wild: The p.r. firm person, one Anna Cordasco, wasn't brouhght into the case to help smooth things over with the Duckett family, or with the local community. Nope, p.r. expert Cordasco was brought in to help Grace further pursue the case:
"In mid-October, six weeks after Duckett’s suicide, Ms. Cordasco e-mailed out a letter to producers of TV entertainment and news shows, pitching them on an upbeat story about Ms. Grace’s dogged pursuit of little Trenton and, if applicable, his killer."
Cordasco pitched local newsies on the story line of Grace as a crime-buster; she was willing to go down to Florida to help search for little missing Trevor, allegedly said the p.r. woman, at the invitation of the Orlando FL police. In other words, Grace was not only not contrite, she was seeking to further exploit the tragedy! Oh, and by the way, the local cops never asked for Grace's help, and clearly didn't want it.
As Dana said in her Observer piece, thanks to the high-priced p.r. company, the matter "just got worse," as the local media responded with outrage to Grace's outrageous tactics.
But not for Melinda Duckett. Now dead, she couldn't be any worse off.
