All morning long, it’s been Scott Peterson this and Scott Peterson that.
How many times do you need to show his mug shot? How many times do we need to see his San Quentin prisoner number? How many times do we need to see him bump his head getting into the van for the trip to San Quentin? Zoomed in and in slo-mo? How many times do you need to say that officials woke him up at 3 AM for the trip? How many times do we need to be told that at San Quentin, he’s been searched and showered and put in his cell?
Oh, and also that it’s going to be at least five years before he’ll be appointed an attorney to launch the automatically-granted appeal against his death sentence?
The next person that comes by blathering on about Mr. Peterson is going to get a handful of used passwords crammed up their ass.
This is what you get for watching local news. My girlfriend and I occasionally watch the first five minutes after Jeopardy! just laugh at how awful and glurgey it is. I would expect nothing less than full-time Scott Peterson coverage from any local news station across the US. Local news is one step away from the tabloids in the super-market checkout line.
As a former TV news person, I can tell you that the only way to kill the Peterson coverage will be a lack of interest. Larger markets are metered, which means a machine keeps track of what is on at all times. If enough people change the channel or turn off the TV at the mention of Peterson, he will disappear. You can also blame the 24 hour news channels because they have a huge news hole to fill and Peterson fits the bill.
Amen. I was watching KTVU this morning, and they said, “after the break, a breaking overnight development in the Scott Peterson case.” I’m thinking, what the hll could’ve happened overnight? Did someone shoot him? Did an appeal get filed? What?
“Overnight, Scott Peterson was transferred from the Redwood City courthouse to San Quentin.”
Now, dear KTVU, you’re usually not too bad, but if a guy is sentenced to the death penalty, said guy going to prison the next day isn’t fucking news!!!
In smaller TV markets, Neilson families keep a diary of what they watch and mail it in. Each family keeps it for one week from Thursday through Wednesday.
In larger markets, perhaps the top 60 or so by now, families agree to have “people meters” installed on their televisions that track viewing patterns automatically. The data is sent to a computer and the results delivered to the stations the next morning. Within the industry, these results are referred to as “overnights”.
The overnights are watched very closely. So if enough people reach “Peterson toxcity level” and turn off the TV’s, the news folks will get the hint.