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The ghastly tale of Cornelius Dupree, exonerated by a DNA evidence test after serving 30 years in a Texas penitentiary for a rape robbery (see UPDATE below) he did not commit, was covered by CBS and NBC. The two correspondents had different takes on the campaign of the Innocence Project to ensure that justice be done. NBC's Lee Cowan learned a universal lesson from the project's Barry Scheck: "It could happen to anybody…whether you are white, black, brown, whether you are rich or poor. Anybody can be mistakenly identified." CBS' Don Teague learned a political one: 21 of the 41 DNA exonerations in Texas have been granted in a single county "in large part because the District Attorney [in Dallas County] has made setting the innocent free a priority." CBS, whose primetime dramatic hit CSI specializes in DNA forensics, has filed as many of these exoneration stories over the past four years as NBC and ABC put together.
UPDATE: Norman Charles factchecks Cowan's NBC story on his blog Nightly Daily. He points out that Dupree was convicted of robbery not rape--the rape was an accusation that did not go to trial--and that Dupree was already released from prison on parole when he was exonerated, so the judge did not "free" him as Cowan reported. CBS' Teague made neither of those errors. It should be noted that Teague was reporting from Dallas, while Cowan filed a narrated voiceover from Los Angeles.
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