O.J. Case Calls Priorities Into Question
Joyce Kline of Lancaster writes:
I’m with you! When I watch the news on TV, it’s with the channel changer in my hand and the second O.J. Simpson’s name is mentioned, I change channels. I’ve also listened to a lot of cassette music tapes these past few weeks!
He’s a hero? How many lives has he saved? A hero is someone who has saved a life or lives at the risk of his own, such as servicemen in wars . . . . He’s nothing but an ex-football player who has made a lot of money hawking products!!
And so on.
Mrs. Kline was, I’m pleased to say, one of several readers who wrote recently to express their agreement with a recent column describing my disgust with the pervasive media coverage of the O.J. Simpson case.
Still, it’s disappointing that nobody wrote in with an opposing viewpoint. How nice it would have been if someone had written: “Harris, you’re full of it as usual. Too much O.J.? Nonsense! If anything, we need more O.J.! Why aren’t we getting a daily reading on O.J.’s horoscope? How will biorhythms affect the attorneys for both prosecution and defense? Really, now. O.J. is so much more entertaining than that health care stuff. Would you rather read about Rwanda? And you call yourself a newsman. For shame.”
The O.J. junkies must be too busy to write. A colleague sadly told me this story: On a recent day off, he decided to take his wife out for lunch. She agreed to come--but only if it was OK for her to wear her radio Walkman to follow the preliminary hearing.
This kind of behavior promises to worsen once the trial begins.
The trouble with all this, of course, is the distortion of priorities. There’s no question that the Simpson case is an extraordinary and fascinating story. Media lords have decided that the public can’t get enough O.J., so we’ll shovel out as much as we can, as fast as we can. The Simpson coverage is a model of the maxim that nothing succeeds like excess. The errors that various news organizations have been forced to retract are but one price of the rush for the latest scoop. The bigger price may be that the hype of “sensational” crime stories will continue. The result isn’t only that more significant stories will be underplayed, but that other important stories may be missed entirely, simply because the reporters are too busy chasing down minutiae of the sensational story of the moment.
But at least there are signs of media guilt.
Consider ABC’s special “Nightline” broadcast last Friday concerning Simpson coverage. When Fred Barnes of The New Republic suggested that this homicide case had gotten more air time than the Persian Gulf War, Ted Koppel said that ABC News was curious about that, too. Koppel said a check (of ABC News’ own coverage, presumably) found that the war had edged O.J. by a “close” margin.
It seems safe to assume, then, that the TV hours devoted to the Simpson case will surpass that of the Persian Gulf War not long after the trial begins.
Think about that for a moment. The fact that U.S. casualties were so low has, for better or worse, enabled many Americans to devalue memories of a war. But try to think back. Think of the fear we all felt as so much of the world decided to march off to war. Think of the fears of chemical warfare. Think of the anti-war demonstrations and the candlelight vigils. Think back to the moment when you learned that U.S. warplanes had bombed Baghdad. Think of the faces of the American POWs. Think of the dead women and children. Think of the carnage that was left in the retreat of Iraqi troops. Think of the solitary Scud missile that managed to hit a U.S. Army barracks, killing 28 soldiers.
My assignment then was the home front. One memorable story required that I visit Frank and Sammie Mitchell of Moreno Valley two days after they learned that their daughter, 20-year-old Adrienne, had been killed in that Scud attack.
The Mitchells graciously met one reporter after another, speaking of their pride and their sadness. Frank Mitchell told a remarkable story of how, a day before the official notification arrived that his daughter had died, he had sensed the worst.
All they had known was that their daughter was in Saudi Arabia. Yet when Frank Mitchell saw the TV images of the burning barracks, he turned to his wife and said, “Adrienne’s in there.” He then turned off the TV.
That night, he couldn’t sleep. “My mind,” he explained to me, “was telling me something I didn’t know about.”
The next day, Sammie received the terrible news first, coming home to find three Army officers waiting at her door. She called Frank at work and suggested he sit down.
“He said he didn’t need to sit down,” Sammie said. “He said, ‘It’s Adrienne, isn’t it?’ ”
I’m not really sure why I decided to tell this story a second time. I’m not sure what got me off on this tangent.
It’s just that, when I think back to the Persian Gulf War, and then I think of the Simpson media carnival, it offends me all over again.
