Casey Anthony Coverage Gives HLN an Identity - NY Times

by mom_in_il Mon Jun 13, 2011 9:14 pm

Casey Anthony Coverage Gives HLN an Identity
By BRIAN STELTER
Published: June 12, 2011

Excerpt:

For almost two decades, trials that tapped into the American people’s judge-and-jury fascination unfolded in real time on Court TV, the cable channel that helped make television viewers into witnesses to the judicial system.

Court TV is now a reality TV channel, and the cable news channels that used to follow courtroom cases exhaustively, like Fox News Channel and MSNBC, now prefer to put politicians on trial. But filling the void, this year at least, is HLN, the unit of Time Warner that used to be called Headline News.

As Court TV and CNN did during the O. J. Simpson trial in 1995, HLN has attached itself to the Casey Anthony murder trial, making it the new trial network of record. Its audience has more than doubled since the trial started May 24, prompting the channel to add more hours of coverage, led by Nancy Grace, outside the Orlando, Fla., courthouse.

At the end of her broadcast each night, Ms. Grace says she is there to seek “justice for Caylee.” That sentiment has become a logo on HLN’s screen.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/business/media/13hln.html?_r=2&ref=media