Morrison Captures How It Really Was

It’s O.J. Simpson trial 20th anniversary verdict eve. I’m about as far removed from the Los Angeles Superior Court, high-profile trials and news-media frenzies as I can imagine and still be on the North American continent. I’m ensconced in a hotel room at Dulles International Airport in Virginia on the eve of my husband’s high school reunion. We had dinner this evening with my husband’s best friend since they were both in third grade and his wife and sister. Not once during the entire evening was that 20-year-old trial, the name of the defendant or my book, Anatomy of a Trial: Public Loss, Lessons Learned from The People vs. O.J. Simpson mentioned.

Afterwards, back in our hotel room, I logged onto the Internet, and saw a Simpson Google News Alert email in my inbox. The link was to a piece by Patt Morrison, who was a Los Angeles Times columnist when I knew her in Los Angeles. Upon reading what she wrote yesterday, I had to blog about it.

Patt’s piece, published on SCPR’s “Off-Ramp” site, is about the best, most accurate recall I’ve seen or heard about how that court case was was and the media’s chagrin at their behavior in covering it. (In my opinion, there were some standout exceptions, such as the AP’s Linda Deutsch and CBS Radio’s David Dow).

Here’s a quote from this account by L.A. Times columnist Patt Morrison: “And, as with a really bad hangover, when it was all over, we were more than a little mortified about how overboard we’d gone. And we promised ourselves that we would never, ever, go that wild and crazy again. Because there would never be a case like this one, ever again. Until, of course, the next one.”

Patt not only captured the trial and the media’s chagrin accurately, she’s right that their chagrin lasted — until the next high-profile trial came along. I urge readers of this blog to read Patt’s piece. Here’s a direct link, in case you missed the embedded link. Good job, Patt.   http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2015/10/01/44661/patt-morrison-on-oj/

Final Violation, Rescinded

Ito press coup

Channel 2 pulls interviews.

No late-night reruns.

11/29/94

After CBS affiliate KCBS-Channel 2 officials violated the terms Simpson judge, Lance Ito, had set before he agreed to do an interview with KCBS reporter Tritia Toyota about camps where Americas of Japanese descent were interned during World War II, Ito learned that the station planned to rerun the interviews — the initial interview had been divided into six parts. Airing them again would also violate Ito’s condition that the interview would run only once. So, rerunning them also a violated Ito’s conditions. At Ito’s request, I contacted the channel’s news director, Larry Parret, and asked him to reconsider. Parret called back later to say that Ito was right and that they would not air the interviews again.

And So the 20-year Reminiscing, and Re-Inventing Begins

I say re-inventing because so much of what became what the public came to believe was the invention or distortion of some who covered the trial and/or perpetuated some of the myths. CBS News Legal Analyst Jack Ford, who was with NBC in 1995, which was when I met him during his time covering the trial.

Here’s his “in the beginning” take in an AP piece published earlier this month:

“At the beginning we knew it was a big story,” says Ford, “but I don’t think any of us anticipated how the public would be so invested in it.”

Amen!

That was the thinking of many in Los Angeles, where I worked as the L.A. courts’ media liaison.

“(Simpson trial judge Lance) Ito was caught off guard by the initial surge of media attention,” I wrote in my book Anatomy of a Trial. “He felt certain it would quickly recede and possibly even disappear. ‘They won’t hang around long,’ he said. ‘Jury selection and maybe opening statements, then they’ll leave and won’t be back until the verdict.’”

From Ford’s observation, Ito’s comment and my expectations, we were all caught off guard.