Stanley “Tookie” Williams Watch: The Foreign Media
Two police cruisers, left, watch over a small group of anti-death penalty advocates outside of Gov. Schwarzenegger’s estate in Brentwood, Calif., Saturday Dec. 10, 2005. Stanley Tookie Williams is scheduled to die at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison. Williams would be the 12th inmate executed since California reinstated the death penalty in 1977.
While we are waiting for California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to make an announcement regarding the clemency petition, the Los Angeles Times has this piece on the reaction of the foreign press and media on the Tookie William’s case.
The Los Angeles Times has Glitz and Gore of Williams Case Draw Foreign Media
The pending execution of the convicted killer allows them to talk about class and race in America, and mark another milepost in the enduring discussion about the last Western democracy to sanction the death penalty.
And then there’s the “glitter,” as one Italian reporter put it last week — supplied by California’s European-born, movie-star governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and by the virtual Greek chorus of Williams’ celebrity supporters, including actors Jamie Foxx and Danny Glover, and rap star Snoop Dogg.
The stars of glitz, gore and glamour last aligned for the O.J. Simpson murder trial.
“It’s got a lot of gosh-wow to it, doesn’t it?” David Willis, the BBC’s West Coast correspondent, said after a clemency hearing for Williams in Schwarzenegger’s office Thursday morning. “It’s just a very layered and interesting story.”
And so Willis filed three two-minute packages on the Williams case and appeared in half a dozen other live shots in a 24-hour period ending Thursday. All those stories were beamed back to England and the rest of the British network’s worldwide market.French, German, Greek and Italian reporters covering the case expressed many of the same feelings — feeding an appetite for stories from their home offices that has grown as the time for Schwarzenegger’s decision grows short. Without clemency, Williams is scheduled to die at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.
The LEFTIE press/media of Europe just love to bash America. And why should this be the exception.
The tabloid press of the United Kingdom is almost laughable if it was not so sad.
Indicating the magnitude of the story in recent days, particularly in Europe, Paolo Bonolis, one of Italy’s most popular television personalities, conducted an eight-minute telephone interview with Williams on the nighttime magazine program “Il Senso della Vita” (The Sense of Life).
Many of the continent’s other top news programs plan to weigh in with extended packages in coming days.
The overseas fixation on American death cases is not new.
Many European newspapers and television news programs carried reports after Kenneth Lee Boyd died of lethal injection Dec. 2, the 1,000th execution since the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the death penalty to resume in 1976.
Sex and death sells.
But, the foreign press do a disservice to their readers but not presenting a “fair and balanced” view of the atrocitiy afforded Tookie Williams’ victims.
Since Arnold has not as of yet made an announcment 10:45 AM PST, Flap handicaps an announcement denying clemency sometime this afternoon or early evening.
Stay tuned…….
Previous:
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Watch: Execution Details
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Watch: Los Angeles Councilmembers Urge Calm over Tookie Clemency
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Watch: FATE in the Hands of California Governor Schwarzenegger
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Watch: Schwarzenegger Considers Tookie’s Fate
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Watch: Scenes from the Clemency Hearing
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Watch: A Question of Mercy @ 10 AM Clemency Hearing?
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Watch: Cobb – But That’s Different
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Watch: NAACP Chief Bruce Gordon Champions “CRIPS†Founder
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Watch: Political Risks
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Watch: Clemency Hearing to Include Claim there were Errors in Trial
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Watch: NOT Afraid to Die
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Watch: A Tookie Store for Conservatives is NOW Open
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Watch: Stars rally around Condemned Killer
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Watch: California Supreme Court Refuses to Halt Execution
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Watch: NO REMORSE
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Watch: Tookie’s “Human Angelâ€
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Watch: Isn’t it The Truth By Cobb
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Watch: Schwarzenegger to Hold Private Clemency Hearing
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Watch: California Governor Schwarzenegger MULLS Clemency
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Watch: FLAP Over “Tookie Must Dieâ€
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Watch: Jesse Jackson, Bianca Jagger Plead for LIFE
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Watch: SNOOP DOGG BEGS SCHWARZENEGGER FOR CLEMENCY
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Watch: California’s Life-and-Death Politics
Stanley “Tookie†Williams Watch: Death Warrant Signed
Technorati Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Stanley Tookie Williams, Crips
One Comment
Pingback: