By: E&P Staff Susan Zirinsky, executive producer of CBS? "48 Hours Mystery, has apologized for airing an altered image of the front page of the Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune in an episode about a local murder trial that aired Saturday.
The paper?s managing editor, Jim Robertson, had complained to CBS in an e-mail. Zirinsky said she didn?t know the image of the front page covering Ryan Ferguson?s sentencing had been drastically manipulated.
Ferguson had been convicted last October of killing the newpaper?s sports editor, Kent Heitholt, whose body was found in the Tribune?s parking lot in November 2001.
"It was an egregious oversight for us not to know it," Zirinsky said, according to the Tribune. "It was a graphic, and we don?t feel it changed the editorial value of the story, per se."
She did not mention whether CBS would inform viewers on the air or on its Web site.
The CBS show, which raised questions about Ferguson?s guilt, showed several front pages from the Tribune during its "Dream Killer" program. A graphic of the Tribune?s Dec. 5 front page for some reason showed a photograph of Ferguson in a suit and tie at his sentencing. The original photograph showed Ferguson in a bright orange jail uniform.
Zirinsky blamed the fakery on a freelancer hired by CBS, according to the Tribune.
Ferguson, 21, was found guilty of second-degree murder and first-degree robbery in the slaying of Heitholt, who was bludgeoned and strangled. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
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