The O.J. Case And The Press p. 81

By: M.L. Stein

The magnitude of the murder of O.J. Simpson's wife and a male friend may have been outweighed by the Los Angeles riots, the Rodney King trials and the earthquakes, but reporters agree it's one of the most bizarre stories they've ever covered.

EVEN TO THE Southern California media, jaded to the eyebrows by a glut of major news breaks in the past several months, the O.J. Simpson story stood out as one of journalism's wildest and most bizarre episodes.
As C.P. Smith, an Orange County Register editor, put it, "If this had come out as a movie before it actually happened, it would have been trashed as unbelievable."
Newspapers, television and radio threw tremendous resources into the story, which began with the discovery of the bodies of Simpson's ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, outside her Los Angeles home June 12. Both had been stabbed to death.
From then on, a startling series of events began with police suspicion falling on football great Simpson and ended in a spectacular freeway chase that an enthralled nation watched on TV. The story may have more dramatic surprises if Simpson goes to trial on two counts of murder with special circumstances.
Before the chase, a "ravenous" press ? in the words of one reporter ? converged en masse outside the homes of Simpson and his former wife. Hordes of journalists and TV crews also jammed press conferences held by Police Commander David Gascon, District Attorney Gil Garcetti and Simpson's two lawyers, Robert Shapiro and Howard Weitzman.
Los Angeles Times writer Andrea Ford termed the media session with Garcetti a "veritable feeding frenzy."
In a Times sidebar, Susan Moffat and Shawn Hubler noted the stories that have titillated Los Angeles ? and the nation ? in the past months, including the Michael Jackson brouhaha, the arrest of accused madam Heidi Fleiss and the "on-again, off-again divorce" of Roseanne and Tom Arnold.
"And now comes summer ? or almost summer anyway ? and the killings of football great O.J. Simpson's wife and a friend outside her Brentwood townhouse," the piece continued. "So back again they flocked to stake out yet another celebrity lawn ? the mainstream press and the scandal sheets, the TV and the tabloids, the paparazzi, and the camera crews."
Kim Christensen in the Register called the Simpson case "the quintessential California story: celebrity and suspense, firearms and freeways, high-priced lawyers, ravenous reporters and an impassioned denial of guilt that hinted at suicide."
During the investigation, prior to Simpson's flight, newspapers worked frantically to piece the story together, often with leaks from sources within the tight-lipped Los Angeles Police Department.
And anyone who might link Simpson to the murders was a target for an interview attempt.
The Times snagged a woman who had jogged past Nicole Simpson's condo before the bodies were discovered. She described a car parked in front of the building that resembled an auto driven by Simpson.
Los Angeles Sentinel reporter Dennis Schatzman contacted a man who had been on the same plane that Simpson took to Chicago the night of the murders. The man said he talked to the suspect and discerned no unusual behavior.
Times staffer Carla Hall, who covered the funeral service for Nicole Simpson at a Catholic church along with some 200 other media representatives, recalled, "We were a pretty well-behaved bunch."
Not permitted to enter the church, the reporters and photographers lined up outside its gate, noting the arriving mourners.
"Except for a latecomer or two, we did not try to interview those going in," Hall said. But the mourners were fair game when they emerged from the services, she added.
"I started to talk to [former Major League baseball player] Steve Garvey and I was soon surrounded by a pack of press and he ducked out. It was that way the whole time. When a reporter would find someone who would talk, everybody else jumped in."
Asked if this was the biggest story she had ever covered, Hall put it behind the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, which she had written about for the Washington Post. But she remarked about the Simpson investigation and arrest, "This is certainly the most bizarre story I've ever covered. It's an incredibly wrenching and poignant drama."
Her Times colleague, Miles Corwin, concluded that given the magnitude of Southern California news in recent years, the Simpson drama is outweighed by the Los Angeles riots, the earthquake last January and the Rodney King trials. But he observed, "I have never worked a story with a stranger sequence of breaking events."
As in all big stories, the press took its share of bashing, including from O.J. Simpson in the letter he penned before his freeway escape.
"I don't want to belabor knocking the press, but I can't believe what is being said," he wrote. "Most of it is totally made up. I know you have a job to do, but as a last wish, please, please, please leave my children in peace. Their lives will be tough enough."
At his press conference, Garcetti, sensitive to newspaper reports that the LAPD had been negligent in allowing Simpson to flee, responded to a question on the subject this way: "Don't blame anyone. I mean, look at how many people are here today. How many members of the media have been surrounding Mr. Simpson's house and he was able to get away somehow."
Los Angeles Police Chief Willie Williams was equally testy when he was asked whether Simpson had received "preferential treatment," which allowed him to slip away.
"That's about the dumbest statement I've ever heard," he snapped.
Simpson's friend Al Cowlings, who is accused of driving him on the freeway sprint, swore at reporters and knocked a TV cameraman to the ground when they approached him following his release on bail after being charged with aiding and abetting a fugitive.
And from Dallas, the Rev. Jesse Jackson was quoted as saying about the press, "There's been a trial in the newsrooms before it got to the courtrooms."
But Gascon, who had appeared tense and defensive at his initial meeting with the media, warmed up to them considerably after Simpson was finally locked up.
At a second press conference, he mentioned the "magnificent job" done by officers and said of the day's events, "It's something that all of us can be very proud of."
Television's coverage of the story evoked kudos from an unlikely source: Times TV critic Howard Rosenberg.
Rosenberg, who frequently has faulted TV news reporting, wrote of the filmed freeway pursuit of Simpson and Cowlings: " . . . the entire day had been a video speedway of perilous potholes and hairpin curves, the likes of which had never been observed before. If there was ever an example of television being historic as well as instantaneous, this was it. Although stumbling earlier, for much of the day, the people on television did themselves ? and the public ? proud."
One group in Los Angeles was decidedly not caught up in the Simpson story and, in fact, wondered what all the fuss was about.
Several foreign reporters in the city to cover the opening of the World Cup soccer games at the Rose Bowl did not understand why the murders overshadowed the games, according to a Times survey.
"Who is Simpson?" an Israeli radio reporter asked.
When told, he commented, "If this Mr. Simpson was President Clinton, then I could understand."