THE O.J. SIMPSON MURDER TRIAL : An Honest Mistake and a Quick Admission of Guilt

For anchor-reporter Kristin Jeannette-Meyers and the rest of the Court TV crew, Tuesday was a day of embarrassment, if not infamy.

A substitute camera operator, the legal network said, inadvertently caught the face of an alternate juror for eight-tenths of a second. Judge Lance A. Ito canceled the court session, depriving O.J. Simpson’s attorneys of making an opening statement to counter the blast unleashed earlier in the day by the prosecutors.

And he says he may cancel all television coverage of the most-watched trial in history. If so, the nation could well lose its daily O.J. fix, a loss to some, a relief to others.

The mistake was unusual for Court TV, the cable operation that has pioneered the television coverage of trials and has set a high standard for accuracy and responsibility.

Since I’m writing this on deadline, I’m not going to make heavy judgments about what happened. But from what I saw, it looked like an honest mistake. The regular Court TV cameraman was sick and his substitute was inexperienced with the remote controls of the inside-the-courtroom camera.

I’ll just tell you about the straightforward way the mess was handled by Court TV and Kristin Jeannette-Meyers. It’s an example that ought to be followed by big shots who think that cover-ups are the best way to handle a crisis.

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In late afternoon, Jeannette-Meyers, who had been in the courtroom, ran out of the elevator that carried her from the ninth floor to the 12th, where the press is located.

Court TV had learned that it had inadvertently and briefly transmitted the juror’s image, and had told Ito. The judge, furious, ended court for the day and sent the jury home.

Jeannette-Meyers grabbed a microphone at the Court TV area by the elevator. “Get me the anchor, get me through to anyone!” she shouted into the microphone.

“We have a lot to report, and it’s all our fault,” she said to the person on the other end of the line. “I know exactly what it was,” she said. Pleading to get on the air, she said: “Please come to me.”

Within seconds, she was on camera. “I have to report that . . . as a result of the TV media, and specifically the result of action of Court TV” television coverage of the trial may end.

In a dialogue with the anchor, she said, “Judge Ito was beyond furious. He was so distraught he couldn’t express himself.”

The judge, she reported, has said he was inclined to “terminate television coverage of the entire Simpson trial. . . . I can’t describe the level of emotional distress being shown by Judge Ito.”

Off the air, Jeannette-Meyers talked to reporters. The mistake, she said, was the result of an unfortunate series of events.

The cameraman who became sick had covered trials for Court TV from William Kennedy Smith in Florida to the Menendez brothers in Van Nuys. He was a pro. “He was the only guy who knew how to operate the remote,” she said. A substitute was rushed in when the regular cameraman’s health failed last week.

The sub, she said, knew he had made a mistake the moment it happened. He screamed at a supervisor to cut off the picture, but it was too late. “We turned ourselves in in a second,” Jeannette-Meyers said.

The Court TV staff manual, she said, says “you’ll never be fired for making an honest mistake.” But if you make one, she said, you’d better admit it.

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Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., the lead defense attorney, was also furious. The court was adjourned just as he was about to speak. He said he didn’t think the camera shot was “inadvertent.”

If Cochran had seen the way Court TV reacted, I don’t think he would have said that.

This is a high-tech trial. The courtroom is wired not only for television but with computers and big screens for viewing pictures.

Cochran, the other lawyers and Judge Ito should know that with technology comes foul-ups. They are no reason stop television coverage of the trial.