Day: November 16, 2008

Why won’t Dick Wolf pay for scissors?

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

You know, after 18 years you’d think the writers of “Law & Order” wouldn’t have to rip things from the headlines anymore. I mean, what’s the rush? Shouldn’t this be pretty routine by now? Just take out a pair of scissors and carefully clip the article out of the newspaper and paste it into your story idea scrapbook.

Or nowadays, really, aren’t the writers all probably using LexisNexis or Google News Alerts to dredge up interesting real-life crime stories to spin into fact-based teleplays? So why are the promos so misleading?

I guess “ripped from the headlines” sounds better than “mouse-clicked from the headlines.”

Washington OKs doctor-assisted suicide

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

The lede:

Fourteen years after a slight majority of Oregon voters made their state the first to allow physician-assisted suicide, a Washington ballot initiative nearly identical to Oregon’s law was approved with 58% of the vote.

“It was a resounding win,” said Peg Sandeen, executive director of the Portland-based Death With Dignity National Center, whose political action committee raised more than $615,000 for the ballot fight. “That’s a trouncing any sort of politician would be glad to win anyplace.”

The group’s board plans to meet in November and December to analyze which state to target next.

“We really believe this is a people’s movement,” Sandeen said. “The legislatures are still afraid” of physician-assisted suicide. She predicted it will take two to three years to mount another state ballot drive. Planning for Washington’s physician-assisted suicide ballot measure, Initiative 1000, began in 2005.

The whole shebang.