Simpson Distraught in Jail Visit, Deputy Says : The Evolution of News Ethics in Reporting Trials

With the defense pressing to speed up opening statements in the O.J. Simpson trial, the media battle may move soon from the streets to the courtroom where it belongs.

The defense team has filed a motion calling for cancellation of a hearing scheduled for Jan. 4 on whether Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito should admit DNA evidence that the prosecution needs to back up its charge that Simpson murdered his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman.

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So far, this case has been a watershed in the relationship between the media and the law. Never before have there been so many outlets for information, ranging from solid news to the grossest of gossip.

Bits of information speed along a news distribution system that includes newspapers, supermarket tabloids, magazines, computer networks, radio and TV talk shows, television news broadcasts and tabloid TV shows.

Much of this news has come from outside the courtroom. Wednesday, for example, one of the news developments was a story that photographs of Nicole Simpson with a bruised forehead and injured left eye were taken from her Brentwood bank safe deposit box. The story originated not from a courtroom, but from a leak that spread from print to talk show television.

This week, I discussed the case and its coverage with a friend who has watched the growth of the news superhighway. She’s Theo Wilson, who, as a reporter for the New York Daily News, covered some of the biggest trials of our time, including those of Dr. Sam Sheppard, the Manson family, Klaus von Bulow, Jack Ruby, Patty Hearst and Sirhan Sirhan. Now retired from the newspaper business, she’s writing a book on the trials.

“It started with TV cameras and radio people being excluded from the courtroom,” Wilson recalled. “They needed a picture and sound. The lawyers learned to come down (to the courthouse steps) and give them a little rundown on what happened. They had a little press conference.

“We (the newspaper reporters) didn’t go to them. But occasionally (the lawyers) would say something so wonderful and colorful that my buddies (in the electronic media) would tell me about it.”

From this small beginning, the process grew. Eventually the lawyers expanded their reports on the day’s proceedings into an interpretation of events that favored their clients--the legal spin. “There were always lawyers who would do a spin,” Wilson said. “If they were really good, they would whisper into a reporter’s ear and hope they would use it. Nine times out of 10, I would say, ‘This is a wonderful bit of information. When it comes off the witness box I will use it.’ ”

That’s because the news ethic of that day said you covered what happened inside the courtroom, not what was said outside. That’s how trials were covered in that era.

One particular day in the Simpson trial during jury selection in October showed how the dynamics of trial coverage have changed.

It was a slow day. During the proceedings, an African American man was questioned by prosecutors. Pool reporters briefing their colleagues gave a factual summary of what was basically a non-newsworthy event.

It became news when defense attorneys Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. and Robert L. Shapiro accused the pool reporters of failing to report that prosecutors were demeaning prospective black jurors by the style of their questioning. The pool reporters, Shapiro said, should report “not only the wording but the body language.”

Their words were quickly carried around the country by television and radio and became the story of the day. “They were writing your lead,” she said. But if Cochran and Shapiro had made their accusation in the courtroom, Wilson said, its news value would have been diminished. “The prosecution would have denied it,” she said. “Judge Ito would have said ‘cool it’ “--elements that would have diluted the impact of the defense charge.

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Once the opening statements are made, and witnesses begin testifying, the dynamics of the legal proceedings will change.

“When you start getting real witnesses on the witness stand, in front of the jury, nothing can rival it,” Wilson said. “I don’t think anyone will care what Bob Shapiro or Denise Brown (Nicole Brown Simpson’s sister) say outside. People will be listening, but it won’t be as interesting. Once you get in that courtroom and stay in that courtroom, it’s a whole different ballgame and there’s nothing like it.”

Captivated by the drama, she said, a lot of people will watch a trial for the first time.

The trial phase, with its evidence and examination of witnesses, will be an education. And if there’s any social value to this tragic event, it’s that the trial is teaching us about a criminal justice system that is a powerful force in shaping our society.

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And now a word from the readers: Several of them phoned Wednesday morning to object to the way I zinged Deputy Dist. Atty. William Hodgman for calling the Rev. Rosey Grier “Mr. Grier” when he is an ordained minister. I said Hodgman wasn’t treating Grier with the deference due a minister and should have called him Reverend Grier. The readers said I was showing my ignorance of grammar. Reverend, they said, is an adjective, like kindly, and should not be used as a title. Thus Hodgman was correct in referring to him as Mr. Grier.

Harpers Dictionary of Contemporary Usage agreed with the readers: “It is wrong to refer to or address a minister as ‘Reverend Crawford.” But the editors also published a long dissent from a writer who said, “My experience has been that the usage of careful and educated speakers in most congregations of Methodists, Baptists and most smaller denominations is to call the minister a reverend.” The dissent, said the editors, “seems to us worthy of careful consideration.”

Grammar, like the law, provides no clear answers.