‘JonBenet’ Is Advocacy, Not Documentary

What Howard Rosenberg fails to understand in his review of “The Case of JonBenet: The Media vs. the Ramseys” (Calendar Sept. 28) is that Michael Tracey’s two-hour film is not a documentary. An authentic documentary is forged out of an impartial nonpartisan selection of materials interviews. What was shown on A&E; last Monday night was not a documentary but rather a piece of advocacy a partisan presentation on behalf of the Ramsey family.

There is nothing wrong with creating such a work, but calling it a documentary is deceptive when, in fact, it is an infomercial.

Tracey’s film is a Ramsey-endorsed project with extensive interviews with John and Patsy Ramsey (considerably more time than they were willing to give to investigators), Ramsey home videos, Ramsey photographs and interviews with Ramsey lawyers, Ramsey relatives, a Ramsey business partner and Patsy Ramsey’s best friend.

Not included are interviews with any of the dozen or so former Ramsey friends who believe the Ramseys are not innocent, not a single investigator from the police, FBI or the Colorado Bureau of Investigation--no one, not a single person, who questions the family’s innocence in the death of their child. Even JonBenet’s participation in beauty pageants from the age of 4 is whitewashed as a fun family activity.

There are also numerous errors and distortions in this tract. The most notable is its repeated assertion that the police immediately believed the Ramseys to be guilty when, in fact, the very opposite was true. It was precisely because of the police’s initial belief in the parents’ assertion that they were kidnap victims and not potential murder suspects that they allowed numerous family friends into the house, which resulted in the crime scene being contaminated.

Tracey’s charges about my story in Vanity Fair are simply inaccurate. He questions police Officer Richard French’s observation that Patsy Ramsey was watching him guardedly as he surveilled the house in the early hours after the crime was reported. The film claims that others contradict French and then cuts to Ramsey’s brother, Jeff, saying that the officer was not telling the truth. There’s one small problem here: Jeff Ramsey was not in the house at the time--he wasn’t even in Colorado; he was home in Atlanta.

The film also criticizes my reporting of a police officer’s statement that John Ramsey had gone out to pick up the mail that morning. However, the statement comes directly from a police report. Another fact questioned is the arrest affidavits for the Ramseys. Once again, the filmmakers are in error. The affidavits were drafted in the spring of 1997. Despite more than a half-dozen requests for comment or denial regarding these matters, the Ramsey family and their representatives, as stated in the article, declined comment. This is also not mentioned in the film.

Although subtitled “The Media vs. the Ramseys,” there is very little here on the media except a broadside on the tabloids. Certainly, all responsible journalists condemn the tabloids and their tactics, but this is hardly news. As in the past, the tabloids have conducted themselves dismally. But the agenda in Tracey’s work is an impassioned, unquestioning defense of the Ramseys and a broad-brush attack on their perceived enemies: the Boulder police and any reporter who raises evidence that questions their innocence. The reporter-hero of this work is one who is shown needling a police spokesman about clearing Ramsey family members of guilt in the murder. Curiously, he is not identified in the film but he is Dan Glick, whose stories in Newsweek have consistently championed the Ramsey cause and who was a paid associate producer on the project. This apparent conflict is not disclosed in the film--quite a breathtaking lapse in light of the filmmakers’ self-righteous tone.

I heartily agree with Tracey’s assertion that the tabloids have behaved reprehensibly and I support the Ramseys’ right to defend themselves however they choose. (During my research, I dealt with four publicists and eight lawyers retained by the Ramseys--a small army by most standards--another fact not mentioned here.)

However, by mislabeling his product, Tracey is guilty of precisely what he condemns. The Wall Street Journal got it right when it said the Ramseys in this film “address many questions. All except one--namely why they have refused to go to the police and submit themselves to full interrogations.”

I do not fault Rosenberg for not being a student of the Ramsey case. However, before heaping such blind praise, he should have done some homework.

Ann Louise Bardach is a contributing editor for Vanity Fair.

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