BEWARE of press releases with words like “exclusive” and “speaking out for the first time,” since networks routinely use them without regard to the truth.
The arrival of JonBenet Ramsey’s parents onto TV this week and next is a case in point.
In promoting their dueling interviews with John and Patsy Ramsey, ABC and NBC both lost sight of the fact that nearly everything the Ramseys say on each network has been said by them before, as far back as 1998.
“This is the first time John and Patsy Ramsey speak out at length about the murder of their daughter,” declared Barbara Walters in a press release from ABC promoting her interview with the Ramseys, to be seen Friday on “20/20.”
“Ramseys Break Their Silence,” read a headline on another press release, this one from NBC’s “Today” show, which will have a five-part interview with the Ramseys, conducted by Katie Couric and due to be played every morning next week.
The headline on the NBC press release made ABC sore because it implied that NBC had the Ramseys before Walters. To make matters worse, NBC issued excerpts of Couric’s interview to the media before ABC released its own excerpts from the Walters interview.
Who got the Ramseys first, however, is a moot point when you realize that the Ramseys have long been involved in a campaign to clear themselves of the widely held suspicion that they were involved in the strangulation murder of their little girl on Christmas Day in 1996.
The newest element in their campaign arrives on Friday. It’s a book called “The Death of Innocence: The Untold Story of JonBenet’s Murder and How Its Exploitation Compromised the Pursuit of Truth.” Published by a Nashville-based publisher of Christian books, Thomas Nelson Publishers, it’s due to land in bookstores at noon Friday, just hours before Walters’ interview airs on ABC.
The words “Untold Story” are also somewhat misleading since the Ramseys’ story is anything but “untold.” They told their story, complete with details about the discovery of little JonBenet’s body in the basement, to British journalist Michael Tracy in 1998. In addition to airing in the UK, that interview was brought to the U.S. by A&E, which has aired it at least four times as part of its “Investigative Reports” series under the title, “The Case of JonBenet: The Media vs. the Ramseys.” It first aired in September 1998 and was re-aired on Feb.29 of this year.
A transcript for that show reveals that the Ramseys answered about all of Walters’ and Couric’s questions in almost the exact same way two years ago.
Neither Couric nor Walters have an “exclusive” hold on the Ramseys. They’ve been interviewed by Newsweek for an upcoming cover story (most likely in this Monday’s issue) and are due to be interviewed on CNN March27 on “Larry King Live.”
