The AP reports that Steve McNair's blood alcohol level was twice over the limit.

If it explains why he was passed out on the couch at the time of the assault, it's newsworthy. I repeat: It's no more than a brief in any newspaper that runs the wire story.

 

Considering the wire story WAS a brief, I can't argue with that logic.

 

SI True Crime? The true crime is how little time they spent brainstorming an original series name.

 

The "true crime" genre, whether it's a podcast, or Dateline piece always makes me queasy, particularly when you are adding production elements to enhance the drama. If the victim's family signs off on it? Okay - but it is odd when these things are produced more as entertainment than journalism.

 

Dateline and 48 Hours often are ridiculous. Every show has to build up a narrative to suggest there is some real doubt or injustice in the case. Sometimes the last part of the episode reveals that the questions that were being teased were not that important or substantial. Other times if you happen to know the case outside of the show, you will realize the doubt the show is portraying wildly overblown.
It's too bad because there is stuff to be learned from some of the cases, whether it is the existence of outright injustices or just the messiness of the whole process.

 

Or, listen to the first few minutes, then Google it to see how it turned out, then go watch something else on Netflix or Amazon Prime Video.

Save 55 minutes of your life instead of commiting the true crime of killing 55 minutes of your own time.

 

I was actually shocked at a Dateline last week - a big component of it was archive footage from an early 2000s episode, when a family member was interviewed in it and wrongly accused an ex-boyfriend of potentially being involved in his ex-girlfriend's death. Like, I suppose you have to acknowledge that you already did a (poor) episode on this story once, but it was weird to me that they did another episode as a result. (FWIW, it was this case: Tara Grinstead murder case - Wikipedia )

This SI podcast is intriguing to me, because they're known for proper journalism, for the most part. I'll probably give it a spin at some point. I wasn't aware there was any ambiguity in the McNair case.

 

FWIW, my wife was the first person to interview the killer's family after the murder. The family wouldn't let anyone else into the house, including TV station reporters who showed up, so the national media picked up what she wrote.

 

And one for Rae Carruth:

Rae Carruth: An investigation into the murder of ex-NFL star’s pregnant girlfriend