CBS News’s 48 Hours and NBC News’s Dateline both had significant presences at the second annual CrimeCon this past weekend in Nashville. CrimeCon is an annual convention for junkies of true crime content.
48 Hours correspondent Erin Moriarty moderated a CrimeCon panel, Journalism and Justice: The Ten Year Battle to Clear Ryan Ferguson’s Name. Moriarty was joined on stage by Ferguson, the man who spent a decade in prison for the murder of a Missouri newspaper sports editor he didn’t commit. Moriarty’s investigative reporting was credited with keeping attention on the Ferguson case, which led to him being set free in December 2015.
“When I went to prison it was a completely different world… my entire adult life was in prison… and so coming out here is a constant learning process,” said Ferguson. “I hope that others are strong enough to stand up against this legal system.”
Over at Dateline NBC – 75+ select viewers joined correspondents Keith Morrison, Josh Mankiewicz, Dennis Murphy and Andrea Canning on Friday night at Gaylord Opryland’s Findley’s bar for a viewing event of Murphy’s two-hour edition Dateline.
On Saturday, Mankiewicz, Morrison, Canning and Murphy spoke in front on panel with 2,000 attendees. Ben Mankiewicz, TCM host and Josh’s brother, moderated. Dateline’s live stream of the panel has now been watched by 14,000 and counting. The panel started with the correspondents watching the clip of Bill Hader’s impressions of Dateline correspondents.
After the panel, fans lined up to meet and greet the correspondents.
Wow! Die hard fan love in Nashville at @CrimeCon2018 to meet the ROCKSTARS of #Dateline ? @DatelineDivas @JoshMankiewicz @dateline_keith @CanningAndrea @dateline_dennis pic.twitter.com/sfN0mVCUVk
— Angeline Hartmann (@AngelineDC) May 5, 2018
Dateline ep Liz Cole was present as well, and took this video at the Dateline Meet and Greet:
Meet and Greet…And repeat. #Dateline #CrimeCon pic.twitter.com/67NSxlO2H6
— liz cole (@elizcole) May 5, 2018
HLN had a presence at the conference as well, with Crime & Justice host Ashleigh Banfield and The Hunt with John Walsh co-creator Callahan Walsh both in attendance for panels and meet-and-greets.
Banfield moderated a Friday afternoon panel with family members of two young girls who were murdered in Delphi, Indiana in early 2017.
In a separate panel, Walsh took attendees behind the scenes of Fox’s America’s Most Wanted and CNN/HLN’s The Hunt with John Walsh.