Advertisement

The Promos, the Hype, the Swaps for the Sweeps Continue

Share

AND ELSEWHERE: A New York City TV station promoted a three-part minidoc about “Moms Who Kill” on its local news with a newspaper advertisement that promised viewers: “You’ll see shocking undercover footage as a mother actually tries to smother her 6-month-old baby.”

While the ad was sensationalized, the Wednesday night report on WCBS-TV, which included the smothering footage--the baby was unhurt--was low-key. It was prefaced by this warning from reporter Barbara Nevins: “I want to start off tonight by pointing out that this report may not be appropriate for young children.”

In the “undercover footage,” viewers saw poorly defined black-and-white video images of a woman leaning over a crib and moving what seemed to be a pillow. In her narration, Nevins said the footage had been shot with a hidden camera by officials at a Texas hospital who were suspicious of a mother whose first baby had died “after a mysterious breathing ailment” and whose second infant was having similar problems.

Advertisement

(Nevins didn’t identify the hospital or say when the tape was taken, but a spokeswoman for WCBS-TV said the taping occurred in 1985 at the Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston.)

Paul Sagan, news director of the CBS-owned station, said Thursday that the series was done because “we thought it was an important story.” Nevins had worked on it for six months, he said, and it always had been slated to run during a sweeps period.

The segment aired in the early evening and again in the station’s 11 p.m. newscast. A spokeswoman for WCBS-TV said about 50 viewers called, with only a few protesting.

The report, in which a pediatrician at the hospital was interviewed, had three brief excerpts of the hidden-camera tape, the last showing a nurse coming to the infant’s crib.

“That day, 60 seconds ticked off on the clock at the nurses’ station,” Nevins reported as the nurse entered the video picture. “They had their proof, and baby Ashley was rescued from her mother.”

She said the mother later pleaded guilty to attempting to kill the child and to killing her first baby, and was sentenced to “four years in prison and 10 years’ probation.”

Advertisement
Advertisement