The Cliffhanger and the Party-Pooper

by Pitchforks

Two months ago Pitchforks predicted that 22-year-old Jordan Linn Graham, the “cliff bride”, whose trial begins today with the start of jury selection, was about to become the new Jodi Ann Arias, and that Cody Lee Johnson, her late husband of only 8 days who she is accused of pushing off a precipice, was about to replace Travis Alexander as the chief deity at the Church of What’s Happening Now. At that time this tasty dish was simmering on the backburner, and the powers that have controlled the flux of pungent steam around sniffing nostrils for the past few years at HLN TV network were just waiting for the right moment to turn up the heat to a bubbling churn of stew.

The ingredients were right: young, good-looking perpetrator and victim; dramatic, beautiful location of Glacier National Park in Montana (lots of crime-tourist potential and maybe some lucrative collaborations with National Parks….), and hooray, it was not in Florida yet again, or in some other sun-baked state – more comfortable for media mavens and less make-up-melting….; a death situation that was hard to fathom, so plenty of potential for rumour-mongering and salacious stories about the defendant to make her look as scurrilous as possible; a clamouring bevy of fame-hungry victim’s friends who were already starting to formulate their “we-knew-all-along-she-was-weird” narratives….. Perfect.

Unfortunately for HLN, because Cody Johnson’s death took place in a federal park, the trial is federally-prosecuted so cannot be televised. But this has never stopped HLN from non-stop coverage, talking-head debates and haggling over tidbits. Jerry Sandusky’s trial was not filmed yet HLN had a special site for trial fans to follow and discuss the trial progress, as well as continual updates from Jean Casarez, who sat in court for the whole trial, and a specially commissioned court-room artist who provided HLN viewers with just-drawn sketches of the protagonists throughout. These up-to-the-minute portraits conveyed the emotion and tension in the faces of the defendant and witnesses in a sensitive and non-judgmental way that was strikingly out of keeping with HLN’s usual tone. The engagement of this talented woman (who, interestingly, Pitchforks has been unable to track down in a Google search) is perhaps the classiest thing HLN has ever done, and she would be a definite enhancement to coverage of future non-televised trials.

So, despite the courtroom no-cameras drawback it really looked as if the Jordan Graham iron would stay scaldingly hot for quite some time, so there was no need to swipe straight away. HLN provided tantalizing little tasters of the ill-fated relationship and of the week-long marriage between Jordan and Cody, a few meagre bones tossed into the airwaves to gnaw on by Drew Pinsky’s “Behavior Bureau”. Viewers were digesting the last few bites of the Jodi Arias to-plea-or-not-to-plea penalty phase, savouring regularly dished up morsels of George Zimmerman playing peek-a-boo with the cops, licking a few bitter-sweet dollops of Angela Steinfurth, whose baby’s remains had just been found in a box, dribbling contempt at yet another “tot mom” whose toddler had disappeared and she wasn’t crying enough, or chomping at the bit about the mother asking for some of the settlement dosh after drowning her three kids in the tub and having the gall to hint at the existence of psychosis. Then of course there was still the upcoming trial of Dr. Martin MacNeill to look forward to, the chap with the coquettishly-named bit-of-fluff-on-the-side – after the success of the Drew Peterson trial HLN couldn’t let that one slip by, especially as all the protagonists looked like they had just come off the set of Dynasty……

At that time, two long months ago, there was lots to graze on, so the diners were not yet ravenously hungry for another feast. There was no hurry, no hurry at all. Timing is all, and there was plenty of time before the “cliff bride” went to trial – after all, she had only just been charged. So that pot was left a-simmering, a low flame kept alive with a few strategic hints at a final scenario that probably couldn’t be proven definitively, some nudges about behaviours that were perhaps even normal or indefinable given the circumstances, but that given the right twist could be made to look “telling”, “suspicious”, and even like “proof” of guilt…..

In short, the air wafted with the delicious aromas of the anticipated banquet of Jordy Linn lynching. The National Enquirer, the go-to source for haute cuisine recommendations, had provided the following peek at the menu:

- Pat motive to run a mile with: suggestions Cody wanted an annulment, and when he wouldn’t retract, Jordan decided if she couldn’t have him no-one else would either – variation on “Cancun” motive – turning everyone’s attention to the details that “prove” premeditation.

- Friends’ perception (always a strong indicator of fact) that Jordan was only in love with being a bride and having a wedding, not with Cody himself – Nancy Grace had already come up with some highly original and catchy vocabulary for that theme: “storybook wedding”, “over-the-top reception” (there was no need to dwell on the fact that the video of said reception revealed a relatively spartan room, hardly decorated with lavish trappings)

- Statistical fact: Expressing jitters and doubts before the wedding, as Jordan did, is extremely rare and abnormal in healthily functioning people, and is therefore a highly suspicious and incriminating pre-nuptial state of mind.

- Jordan’s initial pretense that she didn’t know what had happened, and clumsy attempts to create a credible alternative version of events (this syndrome is known as the “drowning” recourse) – because of course, everyone knows that anyone who is involved in an accident that they know could easily be misconstrued always immediately comes forward and comes clean, with no fear at all that they will not be believed.

- Jordan’s blurting out, shortly after the event, about what happened, to a person she felt she could trust, in her case a person at church, but that could just as easily have been a work colleague (known as “call-to-Gus” syndrome). Invariably, people who premeditate murder make spontaneous outbursts of desperate confession within hours of the event. Remembering not to tell anyone what happened is not a particularly important part of premeditated covering-up, and can be waived at no risk to oneself.

- Jordan’s behaving in a distracted, emotionally-detached manner at the deceased’s funeral was absolute proof of guilt – genuinely bereaved people all react in the same predictable way, with copious tears, audible sobs and soggy tissues strewn about their person. However, post funeral, bouts of crying or nose-blowing were to be regarded as Jordan “putting on an act”, especially if TV cameras were present.

- Using one’s cell-phone to distract oneself from reality, as Jordan appeared to be doing at stressful moments, is very odd and unusual behaviour. Who the hell does that???!!!!

- Victim’s friends said Jordan was always psycho. The invitations were already pouring out to said friends from HLN, especially from “Dr” Drew in anticipation of a nightly parade of these valuable witnesses during the trial – their heads were already being measured for the on-screen box frames and several had already given notice at their day jobs after attending a preparatory training seminar given by some motivational speakers in Arizona. Strangely, hardly any of these friends are on the witness list and will be asked to share their insights in court.

The wooden spoon was at the ready to stir up the gently bubbling pot and scrape the solidifying sediment starting to stick at the bottom of the pan.

And then in mid-October along comes Albie Hecht to take over as General Manager of HLN, and suddenly the soufflé deflates and falls flat in the oven. The highlight sloppy-scalpel trial dissection and vaudeville crime re-enactment show, After Dark, that took off during the Jodi Arias trial suddenly disappeared without explanation in mid-November. Social media is a-buzz, fans wondering what happened. Gone are Vinnie Politan’s “Big Reveals”, that he showed off with less panache and finesse than a six-year-old doing Show-n’-Tell; gone are the sum-up-the-defendant-in-one-word go-rounds of the “experts”, evenly and artificially split between being for prosecution and “for” defense; and gone the slap-stick “reconstructions” of crimes, where dramatic license rivalled that of National Lampoon. Apart from being highly speculative and biased in nature, these spectacles were distasteful for the flippant remarks and rip-roaring laughter into which they invariably erupted as the “experts” clambered in ungainly fashion through their pseudo-violent acting roles. It was like watching children playing at Cowboys and Indians with crude props substituting for weapons and exaggerated yelled self-commentary, running, grabbing, falling, striking, wincing and grunting as they chased, fought, “murdered” and “died”.

Kyra Phillips’ cringe-making late morning warm-up to the evenings’ straight-to-the-core bitchery has also, thankfully, been canned. Her show, that never remotely lived up to its name - Raising America - with its round-table gossip and giggles about the latest high-profile trial coverage – with nothing of any significance about parental concerns – was simply a lamer, cozier and more social version of the night-time straight-to-the-jugular talking-head fare. Now, instead of cynical coffee-clutch chat about defense arguments, with Vinnie Politan making pantomime-stage grimaces and Mike Brooks saying he doesn’t buy it, Vinnie viewers are treated to yet more so-eager-to-keep-his-bosses-happy Mike Galanos giving the countdown to Elf Du Jour and Bling Du Jour, and discussions about the “The Business of Being Britney”, followed by “happy hour” with eggnog tastings and sage advice on how to cut calories during holiday cooking and eating. The tweeness factor is positively skin-crawling. And the complete absence of trial talk quite jaw-droppingly mind-blowing.

What is going on? Has HLN finally heard the rumbles and complaints of superficiality, mean-spiritedness, misrepresentation and low-brow, exploitative ratings-grabbing? Hecht says he is “repositioning” the HLN brand, but there has been little explanation as to what he means, and whether this means worse than before or an unprecedented injection of good taste and challenge to the intellect. One can only hope that with the maternity-leave departure of Katherine Green, who has been Managing Editor during the past two years, achieving the highest ever ratings for HLN by sacrificing analysis, truth and professional presentation to locker-room style slag-off sessions, “evidence” distortion and vulgar sensationalist voice-overs, the network will now make a concerted effort into truly raising America’s awareness about the criminal justice system.

Could it be that the current sickly diet of cloying stories about Justin Bieber’s latest, profound utterances and how to “swagger” like a Hollywood star are a sweetener before HLN gets serious, under Hecht? Hecht’s history is mainly in kids’ TV and MTV networks, but he has also made some non-fiction short documentaries, one, Inocente, and War/Dance (2007), which was nominated for an Academy Award and won an Emmy for Best Documentary.

Other than a one-page announcement about today’s beginning jury selection on the HLN website and some passing, perfunctory mentions in the run-down of the news of the day among myriad other “news” items, the Jordan Graham trial has been kicked off with about as much fanfare as a greasy grand-slam breakfast. If Albie Hecht is planning something big and impressive for HLN’s future, for the time being his recent arrival appears to have had a party-pooper’s dampening effect on proceedings. In any case, let’s hope that with future celebrations we can expect a classier, less gaudy affair, untainted by graceless exaggeration and unsubstantiated, flashy claims – a bit like Jordan Graham and Cody Johnson’s ill-fated wedding reception…….

Pitchforks is a child and adolescent development, delinquency and mental health specialist based near Washington DC who writes about the American criminal justice system and its juxtaposition with the media, runs the website Pitchforks, and produces the blogtalkradio show Routing Out.