HOWARD ROSENBERG : THE O.J. SIMPSON MURDER TRIAL : Time to Pull Plug on TV’s Trivial Pursuit

It’s time to deploy the ugly, offensive, explosive “N-word.”

Even a family newspaper that boasts of good taste, sensitivity and refinement has only so much patience when confronted by gross misconduct from those whose own wheels spin much faster than the wheels of justice. So to all of those speeding, careening, out-of-control television dragsters who stubbornly refuse to apply any brakes in their tire-squealing pursuit of the O.J. Simpson trial around blind, perilous, hairpin curves . . .

No!

At least occasionally, slow down. Stop it, already, with the live cameras and minute-by-minute score-keeping, the hasty, instant verdicts that treat this fetus of a trial as if it were ending instead of just beginning. And put away your Ouija boards, too.

In other words, be smart, not fast. That lesson should have been absorbed long ago even by the feeblest of brains.

* Instead, TV folks can be seen daily attempting to read the minds of attorneys and jurors. Katie Couric of NBC’s “Today” program to a print reporter covering the trial: “What was the jury’s overall impression (of Simpson attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr.)?” KNBC-TV Channel 4 anchor to reporter Phil Shuman: “What did you see in their faces?”

* Instead, these people go haywire in jumping to premature conclusions about a trial that some predict could last up to six months. Even before the completion of opening statements, KCBS-TV Channel 2 was reviewing its “score card” to see “who’s winning the war of words so far.” And all across television, anchors and reporters have been responding to each nuance of the early proceedings as if the case were being won or lost even before the first witness was called.

* And instead, also, many of TV’s human Pentium chips blindly follow the first commandment of speed: Thou shalt go live.

While live, of course, be sure and say any dopey thing that pops into your mind. Thus, mentally twiddling his thumbs while trying to fill time, KTLA-TV Channel 5 anchor Carlos Amezcua wondered aloud Thursday morning if Deputy Dist. Atty. William Hodgman’s reported illness was a prosecution ploy to buy time. “Am I being cynical?” he asked.

And also while live, remember this: Whatever it is, whatever it speaks, spews or spins, just get it on the air--immediately. Do it, even though the perils of live TV--with words and images wildly hurtling across the airwaves like Scud missiles--are well-documented.

Only the other day, in the latest snit of the century, an alternate juror was inadvertently shown for a millisecond by the Court TV pool camera beaming live pictures from the courtroom where Simpson is on trial for the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Lyle Goldman.

At least what Court TV did was an accident. What’s happening now--defense attorneys regularly being granted nearly unlimited soliloquy time to gobble cotton-candy questions as the cameras roll live--is not an accident.

On Wednesday, a 10-minute bloc of live TV was bequeathed to Cochran and Robert L. Shapiro by Channel 2, Channel 4 and KABC-TV Channel 7 when the two Simpson attorneys emerged from the Criminal Courts Building and held an impromptu news conference. They used their stage to savage the prosecution. Extending its generosity, moreover, Channel 2 allowed Shapiro to go solo for an additional several minutes.

This un-rebutted anti-prosecution diatribe wasn’t news, but it was, as they say, good television. And not only that, it was live, immediate, instantaneous, exciting non-news beamed to you even as it wasn’t breaking.

Not that any of these TV folks are necessarily biased in favor of one side or the other. (Prosecutors would get equal treatment, should they seek the camera.) But they are biased in favor of a good show, no matter the sham or the consequences.

Flash forward now to early Thursday morning, when much of TV was live while awaiting word about Hodgman’s condition in advance of a hearing before Judge Lance A. Ito to resolve the latest legal wrangle between the prosecution and defense.

Suddenly there was Shapiro outside the Criminal Courts Building. “Let’s be quiet,” said Channel 4’s Paul Moyer, “and see if he says something.” With the understanding, of course, that even if Shapiro didn’t say “something”--and he didn’t--he’d be telecast live anyway.

Flash forward to 10:30 a.m. that day, when Channel 7 anchor Gene Gleeson announced: “Bob Shapiro is out in front of the courtroom now. Let’s see what he has to say.” What he had to say this time was that the prosecutors were not being fair. But wait, now he had this to say on Channel 4: “When you have an opening statement interrupted 13 times, . . .” he complained about objections lodged by Hodgman during Cochran’s opening statement.

Soon it was 11 a.m., time for Cochran’s impromptu live appearance on Channels 2 and 7, where he insisted that the prosecutors are “so emotional, and they’re so rattled.” He added smoothly: “For seven months, they had their way. . . . They can’t stand the truth.” He then accused the prosecutors of delaying tactics. “It’s so unfair to the jurors,” he added with a straight face worthy of another epic propagandist, boxing promoter Don King, “and they’re not worried about that.”

Flash forward to 1:30 p.m., scheduled time for resumption of court, with live cameras now fixed on the familiar faces approaching the Criminal Courts Building between thick columns of unruly reporters shouting questions and waving microphones as if covering celebrities arriving for the Oscars or Emmys.

“Over here! More this way! What did you do over lunch?” Channel 2’s Pat Lalama called to Shapiro. As his meeting with Lalama affirmed, he was having TV reporters for lunch.

A little later, the proverbial light bulb clicked on over Lalama’s head. “Sometimes you wonder,” she said to the camera, suddenly pensive, “Are we being used?” She paused, as the light clicked off. “But maybe not.”