Author, longtime journalist and former Court TV reporter Diane Dimond, who just happens to have grown up in Albuquerque, made her debut in the Albuquerque Journal Saturday in an "exclusive" Crime and Justice column titled "Take a Peek Inside the Crime Beat."

And the chronicler of the Michael Jackson molestation case, who made frequent appearances on NBC's "Today," Larry King Live, Inside Edition, the Don Imus radio show and elsewhere during the the trial, is already kicking up a fuss over at Duke City Fix.

We don't know whether it was tongue-in-cheek (something we've seen before on the Fix), but poster "A.G." wrote Saturday morning: "It is my humble opinion that the Journal got themselves a gem of a Columnist ... and she wants to hear from YOU!"

That post elicited a comment (also named "A.G."!) that said "Maybe the Journal wants to introduce more sleeze (sic) into their reporting, you know, to kind of spice things up over there at Journal Center."

Apparently a commenter named "Benito" took issue with Dimond's approach to criminal justice -- the comment is no longer there -- because several others have responded, agreeing or disagreeing with "Benito."

Lauren wrote "... nowhere in her self-intro did I see anything about wanting to trash Miranda, give police and courts free rein to use night sticks and guns on street people ... hmmm ... I just re-read it and nowhere do I see those words."

But "CB" tells "Benito" -- whose blog appears elsewhere on Duke City Fix -- "I couldn't agree more with you. (Dimond) needs to get an education as to how lawyers are suppose to DEFEND their clients not put them in jail because she doesn't think they should be put back into society. Very scary attitude."

"The Boy" comments: "The sensationalism of crime and the emphasis on putting the guilty behind bars obscures the equally important issue of getting the facts right and keeping the innocent out of jail," sensibly adding: "I'll withhold further judgment until I read her column."

"Benito" himself later told Duke City Fix that he "pulled out because he doesn't want to feed this discussion. For clarification on my departure, this thing was going nowhere until I opened my mouth. Newspapers equate discussion with interest and I'd rather have the Journal's space devoted to something else. As for Lauren's suggestion that the columnist didn't say the things I mentioned, my rejoiner is she is using right wing code, i.e. "releasing criminals back into society." Worse, she seems to want to get the reader intrigued with the criminal mind. I'm not interested in the unique people she's met on the crime beat, and if I were I would watch the appropriate TV shows. I'm also concerned that her column will be like many stories on local TV -- taking the police view point on shootings, etc., in exchange for column fodder."

Dimond, a former correspondent for "Hard Copy" and "Extra," went to CNBC in 1998 to co-host "Upfront Tonight" with Geraldo Rivera, then moved on to MSNBC, the Fox News Channel, and joined Court TV in 2003 as a sometime anchor and regular reporter, according to her Wikipedia profile.

Born in Burbank, Calif., she moved to Albuquerque where her parents, Ruby and Allen Hughes ran the Hughes Meat Co., according to a profile written in 2004 by the Albuquerque Journal's Rick Nathanson.

She was in the third grade when her family moved here, attending Mark Twain Elementary School, Jefferson Middle School and graduating from Highland High School in 1970, the Journal reported.

She got her start in broadcast journalism in her junior year in high school when her friend, Linda Hebenstreit, whose father owned the local CBS television affiliate, KGGM, got her a job as a weekend receptionist at the station, Nathanson wrote.

From there she moved into news writing for a radio station then owned by KGGM and later became a reporter for KOB Radio, where she won a Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association in 1976 for a series of reports alleging that the Sheriff's Department had misused federal law enforcement grant money, the Journal reported. 

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