Copyright © 1998 by the Boston Phoenix, Inc. All rights reserved.

This Just In: Media

At Channel 7, Mighty Casey strikes out

By Dan Kennedy

Criticizing local TV news for its exaggerated and superficial emphasis on crime is kind of like criticizing Bill Clinton for not being able to keep his pants up: yes, it's true, but what else is new?

Still, TV news should be held to at least some standards, lest it slip even further into territory now dominated by Jerry Springer and those late-night "real life" police and medical dramas that inhabit the upper end of the cable box. Which brings us to WHDH-TV (Channel 7), whose rapid-action, rock-'em-sock-'em newscast has become a ratings winner even as those who truly care about news cringe.

Channel 7 was in rare form last Sunday at 11 p.m., leading with a two-and-a-half-minute piece on the beating in Freetown of a 14-year-old boy that featured (1) a reenactment of his fateful car ride into the woods "to get high on marijuana and beer"; (2) trick camera shots to represent the victim's falling to the ground and then staggering to a nearby home; and (3) reporter Sean Hennessey bent down in a catcher's crouch, whacking the ground repeatedly with an aluminum baseball bat to demonstrate how the boy had been beaten.

"Once the clothes were off, the teen was hit over and over with the bat by the two suspects," intoned Hennessey, who will henceforth be known as Mighty Casey. "The teen was left lying naked and unconscious."

News director Mark Berryhill was unavailable for comment. But station spokeswoman Ro Dooley justified the bat-whacking on the theory that Hennessey was merely showing viewers what Freetown police lieutenant Alan Alves had shown him a short time earlier. Dooley said Channel 7 employs reenactments "on a case-by-case basis," adding: "We think it was an appropriate technique in this case."

In another bizarre twist (as Channel 7 might put it), Hennessey promo'd his report at the top of the hour by standing in front of a police cruiser, weapon in hand, and claiming that the victim had been "severely beaten with this very bat." Did Alves really let Hennessey manhandle a crucial piece of evidence in order to spice things up? Dooley says he did. Alves could not be reached before the Phoenix's deadline. But Hennessey had better be careful, lest the crime-lab report identify him as the chief suspect.

Paul Klite, executive director of Rocky Mountain Media Watch, which monitors local newscasts around the country for violence, sexism, and sensationalism, calls such reporting typical of an industry in which "entertainment values have invaded the news." Although Klite did not have a chance to view Channel 7's report, he describes reenactments as "very manipulative" and "designed to get an emotional response."