Has anyone ever heard of
Wallace Souza? He had a talk show (Canal Livre) from Manaus, Brazil, where he'd rail on the government and play his hand at social justice.
He attracted a bunch of viewers with his gruesome footage of murders. After awhile, the police became suspicious that Canal Livre reporters were actually getting to the murder scenes
before the authorities. Finally, one of his reporters slipped up in this video:
The reporter was walking up to a burnt body (giso) and mentioned something to the effect that it smelled like the body had been burning for six, seven hours, which put the authorities on alert.
They begun investigating Canal Livre and Wallace Souza, and started to believe that he had been orchestrating the killings to pump up his ratings. He'd hire hitmen to have those people killed, beat the police to the crime scene since he knew where they'd been killed, report on it, and watch his ratings go through the roof.
As if that wasn't crazy enough, they then started to believe that Souza was a drug trafficker in the area and the people murdered were other traffickers encroaching on his territory.
Unfortunately, Souza died in police custody before his case went to trial, so the full truth will never be known. I do remember the show producer and Souza's son were also being investigated.
This story has fascinated me for years, to the point where all the info above wasn't referenced at all. I didn't pull up a Wiki page and read it for a refresher, it has been permanently etched in my memory. It's the most bizarre media story I've ever heard.
Murder for ratings: Brazilian crime show host 'went on killing spree to boost viewing numbers'
Wallace Souza, Brazilian TV host who ordered murders to boost ratings, found dead