Television
Murder in the home
Ian Hislop
Today's main news is of course the O.J. Simpson verdict.' That was the view of ITN at 5.40 p.m. and they ran an extended bulletin at 6 p.m. in order to cover the ver- dict live. Tony Blair's speech to the Labour Party was reduced to second place. The BBC bravely led the Six O'clock News on Tony Blair and put the celebrity murder case second. Both the news programmes had the start of the Rosemary West trial as the third item on the agenda with ITN in particular trying to suggest that this was Britain's equivalent of the American legal circus.
God, I hope not. The most fatuous trial of the century delivered a suitably fatuous conclusion and all the networks gave it more coverage than any other story. ITN went live into the courtroom first so I stuck with them for the big moment. Judge Ito spun it out for as long as possible, with a great deal of preliminary checking before the verdict in the sealed envelope could be read out. 'Madam Foreperson' had to sign and date the forms and then they had to be ceremoniously passed to a court official. It was as though the judge imagined that the indecent rapidity of the jury's conclusion could in some way be counterbalanced by the measured processes of the court's officers. As though the jury's four hours' 'deliberation' could be made to look less ridiculous by an extended few minutes at the close of the trial. Whilst all this proce- dural business was going on there was that rare occurrence on television, absolute silence. The camera focused on 0.J.'s face which, as ever, revealed nothing at all. Everyone in the courtroom looked more worried than he did. Judge Ito then told the jury to listen carefully to their verdict as it was read back and warned those in the court against any public disturbance. Final- ly when millions of viewers round the world were on the edge of their seats a Mrs Robertson delivered the verdict and put everyone out of their misery.
Except of course the families of the vic- tims. They disturbed the court by sobbing loudly in disbelief. Simpson was found Not Guilty of all the charges and walked out of the court a free man. ITN was clearly as stunned by this verdict as the prosecution lawyers and I turned over to see what the BBC made of it. Martin Lewis seemed equally amazed and was talking about the violent reaction from the 'African-Ameri- can Community' which was not now going to happen. The BBC then presented a quick round-up of the trial's TV highlights (in lieu presumably of the live footage of blazing inner cities that was expected) and showed a particularly prescient clip of Judge Ito uttering the words The criminal justice system itself is on trial.' Charged with being perverted by race, celebrity and money it will not have taken many viewers four hours to come up with a verdict of guilty on all counts.
The Channel 4 News at 7.00 p.m. fol- lowed the same agenda as ITN. Simpson, Blair, West. American murder first, British politics second, British serial murder third. By five minutes past seven I had seen the O.J. verdict repeated five times but it was still shocking. The Channel 4 footage of joyful blacks dancing in the streets and depressed whites sitting in bars was even worse. A black woman attorney came on to say that there had been 'impressive advoca- cy in the case'. This grotesque claim was immediately undermined by a clip of Simp- son's lawyer making his closing speech to the jury. The black Johnnie Cochrane described the white Detective Mark Fuhrman as a 'genocidal racist'. Cochrane was later shown leaving court protected by bodyguards from an extremist anti-Semitic organisation. The Jews of course know a bit about genocide and the trial was meant to be about the homicide of the Jewish Ronald Goldman. But there was no time for such ironies. A lot more black lawyers were wheeled on to talk about the feeling among 'African Americans' but not one white lawyer appeared on the screen to offer an opinion. Perhaps they are all too frightened.
I missed the Nine O'clock News but got a final dose of O.J. during the News at Ten. The first two 'bongs' were devoted to Simpson and they gave the case a thorough airing before dealing with Blair and Rose- mary West. Again ITN tried to link the British and American murder cases by say- ing that both judges were helped by com- puters. The Simpson coverage made it pretty clear that improved technology has nothing to do with improving the quality of justice. In fact the media technology con- tributed hugely in turning a serious murder trial into an Oprah-Winfrey-level television debate. President Clinton was reported as saying that the verdict had to be respected. No it doesn't. After a case that was sup- posed to be about the evidence, the jury found Simpson black, famous and rich. The American system allowed this to happen and in at least one sense allowed the defence to get away with murder.
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