Call Them Irresponsible, Throw in Unreliable Too

The Court of Loose Tongues is convened.

“ Breaking news! Sources say incriminating nose hairs, reportedly belonging to O.J. Simpson, have been recovered from a paper bag that someone matching Simpson’s description was seen burying. . . . “

Don’t scoff. Only slight hyperbole here. With minor changes, the above could be tonight’s lead story. Some TV coverage of the Simpson-Goldman murder case is getting that bad.

It was widely reported on television and attributed to “sources,” for example, that police had recovered a bloody ski mask in connection with the fatal stabbings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman for which O.J. Simpson is charged.

During Tuesday night’s edition of TV’s newest syndicated tabloid series, “Premier Story” (on KCOP-TV Channel 13), scrounging reporter Rafael Abramovitz repeated the ski mask story, confidently swearing by the “source” who fed it to him.

On Wednesday, however, Deputy Dist. Atty. Marcia Clark, lead prosecutor in the case, said there was no bloody ski mask.

Oh.

Initially quoting “our sources,” KCBS-TV Channel 2 reported Wednesday that police had discovered potentially damaging evidence in a golf bag that Simpson is said to have brought to Chicago the same night that the bodies of his former wife and Goldman were discovered outside her Brentwood townhouse.

Elaborating in Chicago on the alleged discovery, reporter Mike Parker attributed the story to “a police source,” a subtle but significant change in the attribution. Instead of multiple sources--which would have earned the story more credibility--there was only one source, according to Parker, who proceeded to construct an entire anti-Simpson scenario based on the information he had received from his “police source.” Anchor Michael Tuck called the report a “bombshell.”

Later that evening, however, competing KNBC-TV Channel 4 flat-out claimed that the golf bag story--the one it hadn’t even reported--was erroneous.

Not that Channel 4 didn’t have its own sources . . . or source.

Initially citing “sources inside the investigation,” Channel 4 presented its own purported slash-by-slash account of how and when the victims were brutally slain. Yet on second reference, Chuck Henry quoted only “our source,” as if there was no corroboration. Later he sloppily went back to “sources,” before returning to “our source.”

Which was it? Like many in the media themselves, inquiring minds could only speculate.

With the prosecution and defense each digging deep into its bag of media-oriented slick tricks to sway public opinion in its favor, just whom do we trust? Perhaps no one. UCLA law professor Peter Arenella preaches the gospel of skepticism: Don’t believe everything the media report about this case.

Part of that swelling cottage industry of moonlighting academics and other attorneys who dissect high-profile criminal cases for TV newscasters, Arenella has commented astutely about media coverage of the Simpson-Goldman case in his capacity as lead legal eagle on KTLA-TV Channel 5.

What’s a reporter to do if fed some hot scoop on the case from a source that he or she regards as reliable? Just ignore it? “No, seek confirmation from another source,” Arenella said by phone Wednesday. Yes, yes, but that’s Reporting 101, something that should be standard procedure on every sensitive story.

Citing the leak about the phony ski mask--which, like the golf bag story, clearly favored the prosecution--Arenella also advised reporters to attach a warning: “Self-interest must be taken into account as to why this information is being released. It might be unreliable or characterizing evidence in a light most favorable to the prosecution.”

Or the defense. Simpson’s attorney, Robert Shapiro, seems intent on presenting his client as shattered and emotionally fragile, as if--as the speculation goes--he is contemplating an insanity or diminished capacity defense. “Every public viewing of a depressed O.J. will help buttress (the theory) about his disturbed mental state,” Arenella said.

Yet Wednesday’s reports of his past mental state--linked to audiotapes of those 911 calls that Nicole Simpson made when confronted by a seemingly enraged and out-of-control O.J. Simpson--possibly tainted forever the image of him as a mild-mannered sports icon. Although the press had been seeking access to the tapes, the timing of the material’s release--just in time for Wednesday’s early evening newscasts--reeked of advance planning by the prosecution.

What’s more, the affair showed some television newscasts at their frantic, breathless, do-anything-to-beat-the-competition worst. Without hearing it beforehand, both KABC-TV Channel 7 and Channel 4 rushed the raw audio onto the air. But the tape each played first--the one related to Simpson’s 1989 no-contest plea to a spousal battery charge--was virtually inaudible. After embarrassing themselves, both stations temporarily aborted that story, returning later with the devastating 1993 tape during which Simpson could be heard ranting in the background as his ex-wife was on the phone with a 911 operator.

That tape was the core of the night’s coverage, both locally and nationally, as TV continued to utilize every inch of this case the way Eskimos do whales they’ve slaughtered. The CBS News program “America Tonight” even threw in one of those meaningless and absurd “900” phone polls that asked whether the prosecution should demand the death penalty if Simpson is convicted (“We’d like you to make a life or death decision,” host Deborah Norville said grimly). Viewers were also asked (at least someone on the show had a dark sense of humor) if the media were “spending too much time on this story or the right amount of time.”

Much of it is certainly not quality time.

Wednesday’s episode of the syndicated “Geraldo” on Channel 2 symbolized the worst of the worst, uniting in wild speculation a Who’s Who of America’s tabloid Mafioso. They ranged from Mike Walker of the National Enquirer (on the phone with his “far-flung sources”) to “A Current Affair” hitman Steve Dunleavy (predicting that Simpson would be “found not guilty by reason of insanity”) to ever-available psychiatrist Carole Lieberman, her usual sage and thoughtful self while weighing in on O.J. Simpson’s now-famous flight from police on the freeways of Los Angeles: “He wanted to kill himself, in my opinion, next to the grave site (of Nicole Simpson) so he could be as close to her in death as he was in life.”

Dr. Joyce Brothers was also on the “Geraldo” panel, presumably to psychoanalyze Carole Lieberman.

What a circus. Rarely in the history of crime coverage have so many who knew so little been so willing to share their ignorance.