Crime Show Host Accused of Ordering Killings to Boost Ratings

Police say there is a good reason Canal Livre, a Brazilian crime show, always seems to be first on the scene when someone is murdered: the host ordered the killings. State legislator and host of the show Wallace Souza is under investigation for ordering at least five murders highlighted on the program. "The order to execute always came from the legislator and his son, who then alerted the TV crews to get to the scene before the police. [The killings] appear to have been committed to get rid of his rivals and increase the audience of the TV show," state police intelligence chief Thomaz Vasconcelos said.

Sounds about right

[cloudkiller]

Did anyone think this would not happen at some point? People are so easy to make and grow. A successful show, on the other hand, is not so easy.

Murder, She Wrote

[operagost]

I suspect this is similar to how Jessica Fletcher just HAPPENED to be around to solve all those murders.

Re:

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

"The best way to predict the future is to create it."

Ratings.

[Ouchie]

The fight for ratings can be murder.

So it is like med companies creating flus?

[Fotograf]

soon i will need lead helmet, not tinfoil hat!

wow

[Canazza]

This happened on GTA IV too...
I wonder if a Slavic immigrant will shoot him on a coke bust.

Amazonas is a cesspool

[toby]

Murder rates in the Brazilian backwater states are astronomical.

Watch the movie Manda Bala [google.com] for more background on how far corruption permeates the state political systems (although current President Lula seems to be slowly driving it from the Federal system - which is perhaps the only reason that accountability is possible in cases like Souza's).

All that won't be news to most people: Crime, corruption, [forests.org] drugs, guns, murder in tropical states. But less known are the causes and effects. [amazonwatch.org] The roots of the pr