COMMENTS: Cleveland Story is Running out of Steam
All three newscasts led with the captive Cleveland trio for the third straight day -- and made it the third straight Story of the Day -- but in a sign that it is losing steam, there was a split on what angle to take. NBC's Ron Allen and CBS' Dean Reynolds led with a straightforward news report on the court appearance of Ariel Castro, the 52-year-old accused of kidnapping and raping the three women. Allen relayed the reporting of Tom Meyer from NBC's local Cleveland affiliate WKYC-TV that Castro had confessed to police; Reynolds told us that an eight-year-old suicide note had been found in Castro's hand, leaving his possessions to the three captives. On ABC, David Muir aired a human interest feature instead of hard news, profiling Nancy Ruiz, the mother of freed prisoner Gina DeJesus. DeJesus told her mother that she had slept in an upstairs bedroom during her captivity -- so, upon her return home, she preferred to spend the night sleepover-style with her family on mattresses in their living room.
The only follow-up to the Cleveland story was filed by Cecilia Vega on ABC. She recycled an experiment staged by her network's Prime Time magazine show in 2005. Hidden cameras watched teenage girls as they were approached by plants posing as strangers. These men tried to persuade the teens to agree to get into their cars. The men used the "Authority Figure Ploy" and the "Good Samaritan Ploy" and half the time the teenagers agreed. Vega told us that the act of getting into a stranger's car was equivalent to being abducted by him. Not quite.
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