The News Media Did It Again
I don’t go to many parties anymore, mostly because they require a degree of conviviality I am emotionally incapable of providing.
Inviting me to a party, my wife says, is like inviting a shark to a swim meet. I spend most of my time in the attack.
She claims I even wag my head from side to side before striking, the way a great white does.
“You goad everyone until they get crazy,” she said Thursday. “I’m not sure you should even attend tonight’s dinner party.”
“You can’t keep me away,” I said, “it’s in our own house. The law will not permit you to ban me from my dining room.”
“Probably not,” she said.
We had former friends over whose names I would prefer not to mention. I say former friends because by the time they left everyone was yelling and using language that would wither ranunculus.
It was the day, you see, of the McMartin Jury Verdict, which, I gather, everyone but Ray Buckey and his mama hated.
Not since Richard Nixon announced he was not a crook have so many disagreed with a public judgment on modern morality.
And, of course, it is the media’s fault again, as it almost always is in matters of general discontentment. This time, even the media is blaming the media.
A television producer at our party, displaying a degree of perception rarely manifested by a person of his craft, wisely tried to steer the conversation away from The Verdict, but failed.
He wanted to discuss two other stories in the news, namely unrelated medical studies that revealed oat bran cookies will not lower your cholesterol and that people who drink coffee are better at sex than those who do not drink coffee.
But a woman lawyer didn’t want to talk about sex or good health, she wanted to talk about The Verdict.
I even tried to guide the conversation away from The Trial to an article I had seen in Bicycling magazine that seemed far less volatile than the McMartin Case.
A survey conducted by the publication concluded that 66% of those who bicycle believe their sport makes them better lovers, despite the fact that 62% have experienced genital numbness after a ride.
Also, 84% think about sex while cycling, but only 20% think about cycling while having sex, and only 14% have ever had sex during a rest stop.
“That’s a great survey,” the Producer said cheerfully. “Let’s kick it around.”
But the Lawyer, who has the disposition of a moray eel, said, “I think the media ought to get down on its knees and beg forgiveness.”
“About sex or bicycling?” I said, wagging my head from side to side.
My wife sighed. “Anybody for coffee?”
I was making an honest effort that night to be a Person of Good Cheer, but I was tired of everyone placing blame in the McMartin Case.
Fingers of condemnation were being pointed at everyone from the Manhattan Beach police to those jurors who inappropriately suffered strokes and gall bladder attacks during The Trial and had to be excused.
A defense lawyer, among others, said his clients had been tried and convicted in the media. What he failed to say was that since they were acquitted by a jury, our efforts at conviction were less than effective.
Well, OK, so we did crawl all over the story like maggots on a dead dog. That’s our job. It was more than a story. It was a phenomenon, like the Zsa Zsa Gabor trial or Swifty Lazar’s Oscar night parties.
Nevertheless, media people are draping themselves in cloaks of atonement and joining in choruses of “I’m Sorry I Made You Cry,” and we’ll never do it again. Like hell.
Freedom has its risks. The National Enquirer has the same constitutional guarantees as the Christian Science Monitor.
The Lawyer at our party wanted to ban us all from ever covering trials. I explained with as much equanimity as possible that God and James Madison did not give us the First Amendment to be swept aside by dumb attorneys.
Others at the party joined in the debate and before you knew it we had a battle going.
At one point, a teacher accused me of being callous and trivial. I’m not sure it’s possible to be callous and trivial at the same time, but OK, I accept that.
As long as I am working at conviviality, I would also like to accept personal responsibility for the media’s lapses of good taste during The Trial, and for the strife in Azerbaijan, the increase in cardiovascular diseases, the Medfly infestation, Ireland’s 1851 Potato Famine and genitalia numbness among those who ride bicycles.
It’s great to get it all off my chest.