Guilty Guilty Guilty!

Ivan Pereira, a journalism student at New York University, has touched on the growing trend of the media to act as if they're the prosecutors or official investigators of crime, rather than take a neutral approach on crime stories. Ivan's commentary focuses primarily on the coverage of the horrific murder of a New York grad student.

But it's easy to see worse--just flip on TV and watch any of the prosecutors, current or former, invited to comment on crime. Watch Dan Abrams' approach--he flat out says he doesn't feel governed by the rules that apply in courts, such as presumption of innocence, because, as he puts it, he doesn't have the power to put people in jail. No, just smear them, I guess. Abrams, son of famed First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams, is there to get the bad guys, apparently. And he's one of the calmer people.

Nancy Grace, who has made far too much of her victimhood, Rita Cosby, Greta Van Sustern and many others seem to think they're public prosecutors, usually without the facts, and usually done in a way that precludes a truly balanced assessment of the facts they do have. Too often, they are willing to take the authorities' word on everything; far too often are they inclined to speak up for a defendant. They are very scary.