PATRICK HEALY: Neither would discuss the evidence uncovered but they believe Hughes got his immunity under false pretenses.
RACHEL BEGLEY: And the immunity was contingent on if his story checked out.
...that they make in the entire fucking story actually had some real and genuine news value.
IOW, I gullibly and unquestioningly assumed that Patrick Healy wouldn't have gone out of his way to record a voice-over implying that the original investigation had been dirty by using loaded words like "false pretenses" when referring to the as-yet-unrevealed-evidence unless he pretty well knew (on background) that it had been. In short, it was because I got punk'd by Patrick Healy that when
American Dream wrote:Here is a very interesting video clip from California TV:
Suspect Arrested in Triple Murder Had Been Given Immunity.
I responded...
It sure is. Speculation only, but it kind of suggests to me that Hughes is squealing like a pig on advice of counsel. Which is pretty much what you'd expect. But also that he hasn't completely lost his head, if (as I purely speculate based on little more than that video, so grains of salt advised) he's hoping to get away with just diming out the complicit and corrupt government officials who got paid to give him immunity in exchange for that "I was a bagman" testimony of (evidently) little prosecutorial value rather than the bad guys who paid them. Because the latter are probably both much more dangerous and in a much better position to take care of a threateningly talkative person when that person happens already to be behind bars. Which (speculatively) would kind of pass the hot-potato task of diming out the bad guys to the implicated (possibly former) government officials. Who I guess should be shoring up their home security systems if they haven't already done so, however speculative that scenario is, just to be on the safe side. Assuming that they exist at all. But it seems like a pretty justified assumption that they do, I'd say. Based on the immunity and subsequent decades of inexplicable inaction and so forth, I mean.
...thus inadvertently fucking up the early pre-publicity build-up for the punking that NMN had in the works (no offense intended, AD, I think you're being used and very much wish that I were in a position to help you). And possibly also giving Ms. Dixon a reason she might not otherwise have had to come on over to get shit back on track.*** Though I don't really know about that part, obviously. Or care that much, in fact. It was a pleasure having her around.
But the thing is: Reading it now, it couldn't be any fucking clearer to me that the only reason KNBC ever had for treating Rachel's comment about immunity as if it were newsworthy was that it was the sole meager scrap of information that Patrick Healy (and/or his producers) managed to get that hadn't already been made yesterday's news by, among others, the local media with which KNBC competes. In short, they needed a peg but the store was all out. So they whittled one. And I know that with as much certainty as if I'd been in the edit room with them. I really should have known it immediately. I know how they work, I used to be them.
Oh, man. It definitely does sometime lead to a lot more work than is strictly called for, I do admit. But still: I'm so infinitely grateful to whatever good fairy casually tossed the gift of eternal naivete into my cradle lo those nearly fifty years ago, words simply cannot say. Because it just must be so boring being cynical.
***ON EDIT: I am NOT saying that Ms. Dixon was spreading disinfo. Any more than I'm saying Patrick Healy was spreading disinfo. Everyone in the media has to get out there and pimp the brand a little from time to time. It's part of the job. And it's not incompatible with a sincere belief in the news to which you're trying to attract readers and/or viewers. It's just show business. That doesn't mean you're not serious about it.
I just wanted to make that extra-clear.
