TV Lights Cast Shadows in D.A.’s Race

Out in the television trailers of Camp O.J. II, amid the producers’ frantic calls to headquarters and the hustle of the reporters and camera crews, the final days of the Los Angeles County district attorney election are being shaped.

Camp O.J. II is headquarters for the networks and local stations covering O.J. Simpson’s wrongful death trial. Located just west of the Santa Monica Courthouse in a parking lot near the beach, it is a smaller version of the original Camp O.J., the big TV trailer center set up across the street from the Criminal Courts Building during the murder trial.

The activities in the camp and the district attorney election are intertwined. The final, tumultuous days of jury selection, and this week’s expected opening of the actual trial, have increased coverage, as has the spate of Simpson books, which, for the most part, criticize Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti’s role in the prosecution’s failure to win a conviction.

Each report, every bit of TV talk show chatter, represents potentially serious blows to Garcetti’s reelection bid, reminders to the public of his office’s defeat in Simpson’s murder trial. He and his advisors know it. “If it weren’t for the Simpson case, Gil wouldn’t have an opponent,” said his campaign chief and media advisor, Bill Carrick.

But Garcetti does not intend to permit the news stories of the Simpson case to dominate the airwaves in the 17 days before the election. This weekend, he has begun a powerful television advertising campaign designed to tear down his opponent, Deputy Dist. Atty. John Lynch.

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A visit to the trial, and to the nearby television encampment, graphically illustrates Garcetti’s problem.

The symbol of Garcetti’s trouble, Simpson, is now a regular at the trial, hanging out in the hallway before court opens, smiling and friendly with the sort of cordiality he displayed when appearing in Hertz TV ads, chatting with sheriff’s deputies, even exchanging a few words with reporters, although he blames the media for much of his troubles.

There are moments in the hallway outside the proceedings when Fred Goldman, father of the murdered Ron Goldman, is just a few feet away from Simpson. I watched them Wednesday, transfixed by the eeriness of the scene, the stricken father and the man he believes murdered his son, close enough to talk but never looking at each other.

Such powerful moments give the Santa Monica Courthouse an excitement and tension that is turning this stately legal proceeding into the sort of event closest to a journalist’s heart, a big story.

This is particularly evident in the trailer headquarters of Court TV, the cable network specializing in trial coverage. The atmosphere was taut Wednesday as reporters Dan Abrams and Mary Jane Stevenson exchanged notes on the composition of the panel, as Abrams prepared to go on camera.

With interest in the trial intensifying, this is just part of Abrams’ day. He also appears regularly on NBC’s “Today” show. He gave a long report Friday when “Today” led with the story of trouble in the jury. “We didn’t think it could match the first one, but maybe it has the makings,” Bryant Gumbel remarked to Katie Couric.

Abrams expects it to get hotter. “When opening statements begin, that lawn in front of the courthouse will be full [of television crews],” he said.

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Thursday, Garcetti campaign boss Carrick was engaged in another kind of television production, shooting commercials designed to counter the eruption of Simpson news. Like the news crews, Carrick’s team was working under the tightest deadline pressure. His commercials have already hit the air.

The advertisements aim to paint an unfavorable picture of the largely unknown Lynch. “Our focus groups don’t know who is running against Gil,” said Carrick. “They don’t know his name.”

The Lynch of the commercials will be portrayed as an old-fashioned do-nothing kind of guy who wants to abandon Garcetti’s program of prosecuting domestic violence--a charge denied by the challenger.

Garcetti’s political future rests largely on the belief of his advisors that the commercials will be strong and plentiful enough to prevent John Lynch from riding to victory on the O.J. Simpson trial’s coverage.