Holes in Danton story; notes and Neil Young
November 12, 2009 · 23 Comments
Good journalism is about good story telling.
And the story we wanted to hear from the Nick Kypreos interview with Mike Danton was the compelling stuff.
We wanted Danton, with the help of Kypreos, to solve a mystery.
We needed to hear the details of Danton’s attempt to have his father, Steve Jefferson, murdered. Danton was convicted of conspiracy to have his agent, Dave Frost, a controlling influence in his life since teen-age years, knocked off. But Danton insists that it was actually his father who was the target.
Which was it? That was the story Kypreos needed to pursue.
Why did he decide to have his father killed?
How did Danton set up the attempted hit? How does a hockey player in St. Louis go about whacking his dad, who lives in Brampton, Ont.?
Yes, Jefferson was allegedly abusive when Danton was a child, but Danton was 23 years old at the time of the murder conspiracy, well away from him.
That none of these questions were answered adequately, and that Kypreos didn’t push him, made the exercise a failure.
Danton, in his first interview since his arrest more than four years ago (he served 63 months in a U.S. prison), came across as articulate, not stupid, and reasonably relaxed.
His believability is up for debate.
Kypreos, of course, asked the essential question early: “Who was your target?”
Danton said it was his biological father.
“Why did you want your biological father killed?” Kypreos asked.
“It was more of a mental thing, where I was under the impression that there was a hit man coming from Canada, which the media agencies broadcasted fairly clearly,” Danton said. “It was black and white in all the newspapers. That was my state of mind. I was believing somebody was coming after me to end my life. And the way that I looked at it, I don’t want to die. I don’t know what’s going on in actuality, just my mind telling me this was going to happen. And I reacted and made a terrible mistake.”
But, wait a minute. The media do not report murder attempts before they take place.
“And the hit man from Brampton has crossed the border and making his way to St. Louis where he’s planning to clip the hockey player . . . . “
That sort of play-by-play doesn’t happen.
Kypreos needed to follow up and ask: What newspapers reported you were going to be killed? Where was it being broadcast?
There were no reports, of course. Danton was imagining it all. Or he was being controlled by Frost.
Kypreos needed to ask him again: Tell us more about why you wanted your father killed?
He didn’t do it. Nor did he ask why the alleged hit man identified Frost, and not Jefferson, to the FBI as his target.
At the very least, Kypreos needed to get into the details about how Danton, in his mind, was planning to use a thug in St. Louis to kill his father who lives in another country and had never been to St. Louis.
We got none of that.
At the end of the show, Kypreos told us that Danton underwent therapy while he was in prison. We should have been able to hear Danton talking about that. We didn’t.
What exactly was his mental illness? At one point he described his state of mind as paranoid. We needed more about that.
Kypreos, an NHL commentator and former player, is relatively new to journalism. In this particular situation it would have been helpful if he’d had a producer or veteran journalist in his ear from a broadcast truck guiding and alerting him to the correct follow-ups.
My Generation
- The Who will be the halftime entertainment at the Super Bowl.
- Hockey Night In Canada has launched an application for iPhone and iPod Touch, free of charge, that provides live NHL summaries, statistics and results.
- Rogers Sportsnet drew 189,000 for Nick Kypreos’s interview with Mike Danton on Wednesday night.
- NFL telecasts Sunday at 1 p.m. ET:
Buffalo-Tennessee, on CTV Toronto, CTV South Western Ontario and CTV HD East.
Detroit-Minnesota, on CTV Ottawa, CTV Winnipeg, CTV British Columbia, CTV Northern Ontario, CTV Saskatchewan and CTV HD West.
Jacksonville-New York Jets, on CTV Montreal and CTV Atlantic.
Cincinnati-Pittsburgh, on CTV Calgary and CTV Edmonton.
At 4 p.m.:
Dallas-Green Bay, Sportsnet Pacific and West.
Seattle-Arizona, Sportsnet Ontario and East.
Milestones of the week
Journalist Morley Safer turned 78 earlier this week; George S. Patton would have celebrated his 124th birthday, appropriately on Nov. 11, but for the small matter of mortality and the army vehicle accident of 1945; and Neil Young was 63 yesterday. Young said he was inspired to write music after he heard as a teen-ager Ian and Sylvia’s Four Strong Winds playing on the jukebox. He’s the son of the late Scott Young, the famous sportswriter (Globe and Mail, Toronto Telegram). A Young standard, with The Band and Joni Mitchell:
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For those in the Toronto area, the only NFL game from the Buffalo stations at 4PM ET will now apparently be Philadelphia at San Diego, on WUTV (Fox). So it’s possible Rogers may consider dumping Dallas at Green Bay in order to get their simultaneous substitution for Citytv Toronto.
Looks like its just the Buffalo and Syracuse area that is showing Phii-SD over Dal-GB for some reason. Tough choice for City as if they switch, they’ll get sim sub for the GTA but lose it in other areas that don’t have buffalo affiliates.
and here’s what the FBI agent who investigated the crime had to say about the intended target, Frost.
http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/rogueagent/interview_jiminez.html
Before watching Kypreos & Danton, set aside 40 minutes and watch the 5th Estate’s piece on the story. What Danton is doing with Kypreos, he’s doing at the direction of Frost. I wish Kypreos had seen the piece, as he could have then asked more pointed questions. Here’s the link. Decide for yourself. T he taped episode is about haflway down the right side of the column.
http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/rogueagent/
The Who would have been a bold choice for the super bowl 30 years ago. I like the Who, Springsteen and the Stones but it would be nice if they picked a band who was not so far past their prime. Even when they had U2 back in 2002, they hadn’t made any good music in at least 7-10 years.
Heard Kipper on the fan yesterday morning stating emphatically that Danton, although he was in contact with David Frost, insisted that Frost would not take part in any hockey related decisions in Danton’s life. Ha! Like the Frost problem has anything to do with hockey. He also seems to take Danton’s insistence that his father was the target of the hit at face value even after the interview.
Man, talk about not being able to see the story for the trees. Cripes.
And on various sports shows around the dial hockey “experts” are seriously discussing whether or not Danton should be given a shot to return to the NHL? Why in god’s name would any team want this freak? Would you like to sit in the room beside a guy who is controlled by the creepy David Frost? Who might be inclined to put out a hit on you if you move up to the 2nd line and he get’s bumped down to the 3rd? Who’s been out of hockey for 5 years?
Now, was Danton paroled or did he serve out his term? Don’t you usually have to accept responsibility for your crime to be paroled? Danton seems to dispute the charges against him in that, as mentioned above, his father was the target of the hit, not Frost.
The idea of Sportsnet producers helping or feeding Nick questions is debateable. These same producers ran a 2:30 story on the Buffalo Bills going bowling this week. (Sportsnet Ontario’s 630 newscast.) It was a infomercial disguised as a news story. Sportsnet is the same network whose hosts mispronounce names of cities like Bogota, Columbia. (Memo to Sean McCormack-It is not Ba-go-da). But at least Sean didn’t pronounce NHL official Stephane Auger’s last name “Ogre” as one of Sportsnet’s other hosts did last year.
Memo to Deep News: It is Colombia NOT Columbia.
Didn’t see the interview but based on some of the comments including being under the impression of a hit man coming …, that was the state of his mind at the time, that very serious delusions and paranoia could have been the main features. These would not have been the domain of Kipper to put together the diagnosis. Perhaps many more experienced journalists would have also been in a quandry on how to deal with this. The missing piece of information to tie it all together might have been the word “psychosis” which would now scare away everyone wanting to hire Danton.
Heard Kypreos interviewed on The Fan 590 yesterday am and thought he sounded sincere that he was after a “first of…” interview.
Remember Kipper swam/skinnydipped with Mats Sundin before/after his famous interview with Mats last year after Sundin had not returned to the beloved Maple Leafs. I like Nick’s style and humility which bodes well for him. The fact he didn’t get a “Sixty Minutes” hard hitting interview may not be just his own as his production crew has a role in this as well.
Weird interpretation.
“… the media agencies broadcasted fairly clearly,” Danton said. “It was black and white in all the newspapers.”
He’s clearly talking about after he was arrested.
Kypreos did fine. I’m glad it wasn’t you interviewing him. Way too literal.
As a hard line shill for the PA during the labour disruption, Kypreos was the perfect guy for this interview. As a former player he will always protect the player regardless of objectivity.
Truly unfortunate that Sportsnet got this interview.
You brought up the questions that I thought about last night. Though I like Kipper, he was not the right guy for this interview, which is why he probably got the gig. It seemed he just read the questions from his notes, and lacked the ability to offer follow-up questions “on the fly”. It essentially came off as almost a “throw-away” interview. Hopefully someone else (Friedman?) gets to Danton and does the proper investigative interview. Of course it ain’t going to happen, as that interviewer won’t get Frosts permission, as it seems that again Danton is very involved with this nefarious personality. But again, Kipper just seemed to not want to go there, and didn’t ask the proper questions near the interviews end to find out more about Danton & Frosts current relationship. Overall, big disappointment!!
Hard to tell who is more brain damaged.. Kypreos or Danton? But folks that is why Kipper was chosen.. no journalistic skills and no intellect to pursue any damaging line of questioning. BTW don’t be surprised if Kipper and Frosty didn’t sit down and hammer out exactly how this interview was going to go.
I whole lot of nothing. Kypreos simply does not have the journalistic chops to have been the one doing the interview. It is not his fault, and as Mr. Houston points out, the producers should have been feeding him questions.
Maybe the background is Danton would only do the interview with a fellow hockey player, but if it was a Sportsnet exclusive, they should have tried to get McCown to do the interview.
Dave Foster?
It’s been fixed.
It’s Sportsnet, you knew they were going to screw this up.
On the other hand, is anyone really surprised that Kypreos would produce a disappointing softball interview? I haven’t seen it yet, but I don’t have high expectations and I’m not exactly shocked that it didn’t wow anybody.