But it's been a long time since a network cared enough about a death row inmate to send an anchor down to do a live interview. When Larry King interviewed Karla Faye Tucker and Geraldo interviewed Gary Graham....they did it for legitimate news reasons--both were huge stories as their execution dates approached. Williams was a big story earlier this year when Jamie Foxx starred in Redemption, a movie about his life--but that was six months ago, an eternity for networks.

Rita tried to eke out of Williams every possible detail of prisoner violence. She wanted him to expound on the miserable conditions. She tried to get him to say it was worse for child murderers. He didn't bite, and answered evenly, intelligently and matter of factly--it's not that big a deal. He said it's bad for everyone. San Quentin is not, after all, the Holiday Inn.

Rita might as well have gleefully announced, "Look folks, here's what's in store for Scott." It was transparent, embarassing to watch and not worthy of her usual professionalism.

In addition, the segment before Williams was on, she did her legal segment with four lawyers, all predicting a death verdict, all predicting the jury would be hanging on to Sharon Rocha's every word and then jump to do her bidding.

Very disappointing.

links: Tookie's Corner (Williams' website); In his own words. Interview in Mother Jones. More on Gary Graham.