Real Crime Stories/Paranormal Hauntings

The O. J. Simpson Murder Trial (Part VIII)

Media coverage

When the trial began, all of the networks were getting these hate-mail letters because people's soap operas were being interrupted for the Simpson trial. But then what happened was the people who liked soap operas got addicted to the Simpson trial. And they got really upset when the Simpson trial was over, and people would come up to me on the street and say, 'God, I loved your show.'— Marcia Clark, 2010

The murders and trial – "the biggest story I have ever seen", said a producer of NBC's Today – received extensive media coverage from the very beginning; at least one instant book was proposed two hours after the bodies were found, and scheduled to publish only a few weeks later. The case was a seminal event in the history of reality television. The Los Angeles Times covered the case on its front page for more than 300 days after the murders. The Big Three television networks' nightly news broadcasts gave more air time to the case than to the Bosnian War and the Oklahoma City bombing combined. The media outlets served an enthusiastic audience; one company put the loss of national productivity from employees following the case instead of working at $40 billion. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno aired many skits on the trial, and the Dancing Itos – a troupe of dancers dressed as the judge – was a popular recurring segment. According to Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post, the acquittal was "the most dramatic courtroom verdict in the history of Western civilization".

Participants in the case received much media coverage. Fans approached Clark at restaurants and malls, and when she got a new hairstyle during the trial, the prosecutor received a standing ovation on the courthouse steps; People approved of the change, but advised her to wear "more fitted suits and tailored skirts". While Cochran, Bailey and Dershowitz were already well-known, others like Kaelin became celebrities, and Resnick and Simpson's girlfriend Paula Barbieri appeared in Playboy. Those involved in the trial followed their own media coverage; when Larry King appeared in the courtroom after a meeting with Ito, both Simpson and Clark praised King's talk show. Interest in the case was worldwide; Russian president Boris Yeltsin's first question to President Clinton when they met in 1995 was, "Do you think O.J. did it?".

The issue of whether to allow any video cameras into the courtroom was among the first issues Judge Ito had to decide, ultimately ruling that live camera coverage was warranted. Ito was later criticized for this decision by other legal professionals. Dershowitz said that he believed that Ito, along with others related to the case such as Clark, Fuhrman and Kaelin, was influenced to some degree by the media presence and related publicity. The trial was covered in 2,237 news segments from 1994 through 1997. Ito was also criticized for allowing the trial to become a media circus and not doing enough to regulate the court proceedings.

Among the reporters who covered the trial daily from the courtroom, and a media area that was dubbed "Camp O.J.", were Steve Futterman of CBS News, Linda Deutsch and Michael Fleeman of the Associated Press, Dan Whitcomb of Reuters, Janet Gilmore of the Los Angeles Daily News, Andrea Ford of the Los Angeles Times, Michelle Caruso of the New York Daily News, Dan Abrams of Court TV, Harvey Levin of KCBS and David Margolick of The New York Times. Writers Dominick Dunne, Joe McGinniss and Joseph Bosco also had full-time seats in the courtroom.

On June 27, 1994, Time published a cover story, "An American Tragedy," with a photo of Simpson on the cover. The image was darker than a typical magazine image, and the Time photo was darker than the original, as shown on a Newsweek cover released at the same time. Time became the subject of a media scandal. Commentators found that its staff had used photo manipulation to darken the photo, and speculated it was to make Simpson appear more menacing. After the publication of the photo drew widespread criticism of racist editorializing and yellow journalism, Time publicly apologized.

Charles Ogletree, a former criminal defense attorney and current professor at Harvard Law School, said in a 2005 interview for PBS' Frontline that the best investigative reporting around the events and facts of the murder, and the evidence of the trial, was by the National Enquirer.

Aftermath

In the February 1998 issue of Esquire, Simpson was quoted as saying, "Let's say I committed this crime ... Even if I did this, it would have to have been because I loved her very much, right?"

In April 1998, Simpson did an interview with talk show host Ruby Wax. In an apparent joke, Simpson shows up at her hotel room claiming to have a surprise for her, and suddenly waved a banana about his head, as if it were a knife, and pretended to stab Wax with it. The footage soon made its way onto U.S. TV networks, causing outrage.

As of April 2001, Los Angeles Police Department homicide Detective Vic Pietrantoni was assigned to the Simpson-Goldman case.