NYPD Blue Gal Meets Psychic Detectives
Andrea Thompson — the NYPD Blue actress turned TV newswoman — is speaking out about her exit from CNN Headline News. "One of the things that was frustrating for me," she told reporters at the Television Critics Association press tour in Hollywood, "is we were taking subjects like suitcase bombs and biological attacks, and trying to fit them into a two-and-a-half-minute interview.
"Basically," she added, "you just give the viewers enough to scare the hell out of them, and not any real valuable information. And we saw so much of that after Sept. 11 that I thought was, frankly, irresponsible."
So has Thompson doffed her press fedora to resume an acting career? "It's not as though I've left the world of journalism," she said, but reminded us that the non-compete clause in her CNN Headline News contract prevents her from joining another news organization for awhile. Meanwhile, she's been tapped by Court TV to host Psychic Detectives (debuting Feb. 27). This documentary-style show finds the ex-TV cop interviewing psychic mediums consulted by the police to solve crimes.
Perhaps hoping to preserve some of her news cred in this iffy realm, she explained: "It's very important to emphasize that this is one of many tools that investigators have at their hands, whether it's dogged police work, shoe leather, going through mountains of phone records [and] DNA evidence. Nobody is standing here and ready to attribute [solving a crime] to a psychic."
After that, Thompson joked that a psychic had foreseen where her career's going, "but she won't tell me."
