Trial by Talk Show Could Mean Double Jeopardy

Howard Rosenberg’s column (“Can They Talk? Yes, Just Don’t Expect Fairness,” May 30) addressed a frightening trend.

After the McMartin verdicts were in, the real abuse began. There was a stampede to get the parents and children in the case on the talk shows, and appear they did, on every one of them. Found not guilty in the criminal courts, the Buckeys were crucified on television. Children who “couldn’t remember” on the psychologist’s original tapes told lurid stories of newly remembered abuse.

Child abuse, wife beating, rape and murder are the favorite topics of the talk shows, and the assumption is always that the accusation is true. Sometimes, “in the interests of fairness,” an announcement is made to the effect that the accused was contacted and offered a chance to appear on the show with his accuser, “but he declined,” implying that, were he innocent, he would be thrilled to death to discuss his private life on national TV. Dignity has become an admission of guilt in this age of “strip television.”

How long will it be before some self-appointed judge out there in television land decides to execute one of these “defendants?” This abuse of freedom of speech gives the term “double jeopardy” a whole new meaning.

DIANE SILVER

Arleta