Reenacting O.J. Simpson Civil Trial Is Theater at Its Worst

Television has sunk to a new low with E! Television’s coverage of the O.J. Simpson civil trial (“E! Acts Out a Way to Cover Simpson,” Calendar, Oct. 24).

It is hard to imagine with the variety of television and cable programming available--sitcoms, dramas, talk shows, tabloid programs, news broadcasts, documentaries and science programs, as well as public television; oh, let’s not forget C-SPAN and Court TV--that the only new vehicle left for entertainment is watching actors reenacting the daily transcripts of the trial.

John Rieber, vice president of programming at E! said: “This is the best way to take viewers inside the courtroom because that is where they want to be.”

Maybe so. But at what point will television stop pandering to the morbid curiosity of viewers in order to score ratings points?

What is worse, it seems that being morbid is the current wave of television. News broadcasts open with their most titillating story, usually a violent one, to draw in viewers regardless of its newsworthiness. Networks have added more parental advisory notices on their programs than ever before because of shows like “Millennium” and “EZ Streets.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating censorship. But I find it offensive to use someone’s current real-life pain as a form of entertainment.

Whether you believe Simpson is guilty or innocent, that he got off justly or paid his way out; whether the outrage at his verdict is reasonable or not, first and foremost everyone mourning the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman and those hoping to get justice, have a right to some reasonable form of privacy in this news-hungry world.

Reducing the civil trial to so-called “entertainment” demeans the legal process. On the other hand, a show like Court TV exists to educate and inform the public. Some people may view it as “entertainment” because of spin doctors, but the action in the courtroom is real, not interpretation. If a TV drama were done after the civil trial was over and the verdict in, that would be another story. To reenact it now is theater, and theater at the worst.

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How can anyone justify having actors trying to duplicate the pain on the Goldmans’ faces or the agony behind the Brown family’s stares? This is not journalism or news. It is exploitation.

In my opinion, there are enough books on the subject of the Simpson case, enough television programs devoting time and personnel in reporting the civil trial proceedings as news for anyone who has to get their O.J. fix. We don’t need an actor trying to grimace like Simpson or fighting back tears like Kim Goldman.

What we need is good and honest reporting. Facts not conjecture. It is up to each of us to admit that this trial, like the first, is not entertainment. It’s the conclusion to a tragedy.