Oct. 12, 2007
Fighting For Our Rights To O.J. and Paris
By STEVE FRIESS
You may have heard that a few weeks ago, the nation’s most
famous ex-murder defendant was picked up on armed robbery charges
here in Las Vegas. Or you may have heard that the nation is
mired in a seemingly unwinnable and endless war in some Middle
Eastern country. Or you may have heard that there’s controversy
over whether the president misuses his power to violate privacy,
illicitly enrich his cronies and misinform the public.
What? You mean you know about all of those things? Why, that
cannot be! Or, at least, the editor of the other alternative
weekly, Steve Sebelius, doesn’t think you could possibly be
so aware. You’re all too stupid to know about more than one
thing!
I was more than a little amused to recognize myself as the
fall guy in Sebelius’ column in CityLifea few weeks back following
a fun little scrum he and I had on PBS’ Nevada Week In Review
on Sept. 21. The biggest Vegas story of the week was the arrest
and release of O.J. Simpson on charges he and a group of gunned-up
thugs burst into a Palace Station hotel room to “retrieve” some
sports memorabilia the ex-football star insisted was his. Now
they face a slew of felony charges.
I had covered this situation for The New York Times and acknowledged
on the TV program that I was surprised – and grateful, at least
from a bankbook point of view – that The Paper of Record had
me following the saga on a daily basis as it first unfolded.
I never pretended that it was the sort of story that actually
made a difference in people’s lives, but whether the fate of
the nation is at stake isn’t the only motivation for committing
journalism. Sometimes it’s just interesting and weird, and the
central figure of the Trial of Last Century being caught up
in such a ridiculous scheme in a place as prurient as Las Vegas
has all the elements of something interesting and weird.
Sebelius, it was clear, found the entire topic distasteful
and insulting to his intelligence and opted to dismiss the situation
with the refrain, repeated twice on air and once in print, that
this is just a “tale of a few simple felony crimes.” See, I
think of a stick-up at the Circle K as a simple felony case;
say what you want about the importance of this case, the O.J.
mess is nothing if not tangled and complicated. And the charges
carry the potential for life in prison, no small issue, either.
No, it wouldn’t have rated front-page coverage if not for the
famous defendant, but nor would criminal charges against the
offspring of a former county commissioner. Someone’s prominence
does tend to make an ordinary story extraordinary.
What really ticked Sebelius off on the TV show was when talk
turned to the upcoming presidential campaign and I wondered
aloud whether an O.J. trial in Vegas in the fall of 2008 would
distract the American public from the task at hand of choosing
a new president. I wasn’t saying it should do so. I was merely
curious if it could, seeing how in 1997 the networks did, after
all, split the screen to bring us simultaneous coverage of a
State of the Union speech and the verdict in the civil lawsuit
against Simpson related to the murder of his ex-wife and her
friend.
In Sebelius’ Sept. 21 column, he lamented quite melodramatically
that coverage of O.J. equals an abdication of the very duty
of all journalists to help the democracy function. It’s a phony
argument put forth by whiny elitists who seem to overlook the
fact that the public has more access than in any time in world
history to any sort of news they wish to consume. Anyone who
wants to know about global warming, Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers
or the fate of farmers in Angola can find more than they can
possible handle. Paris Hilton and O.J. Simpson aren’t displacing
anything, and the Review-Journal in particular devotes a lot
of ink to rather obscure international stories.
“There are scoundrels in this country who are trying to make
off with billions, to say nothing of the Constitution itself,”
Sebelius wrote. “Told right, that story would rightfully banish
O.J. coverage.” But why? Why isn’t there room for both? Is there
really a paucity of serious coverage in the New York Times or
the Washington Post or across the blogosphere of those very
issues? What’s the big deal if celebrity antics fascinate us,
too? By his own account, Sebelius himself likes a good piece
of Britney gossip mixed in with his Dina Titus diet; why does
he fancy that he’s a better news consumer than everyone else,
with license to scold?
Sebelius cites a bumper sticker wondering why people aren’t
more outraged. It’s sort of surprising someone advocating more
substance is reduced to slogans, but the answer is that there’s
enough misery and injustice in the world that by this logic
there would never, ever be a moment’s rest from the outrage.
And, by the by, it’s not just us Americans. I’ve spent considerable
amounts of time in China and Europe and I can assure you that
the exploits of the rich and famous and the details of lurid,
unusual crimes are all the rage everywhere. Even in parts of
the world where poverty is rife and disease is widespread, human
beings are distracted and enthralled by stories of the strange
things other human beings do.
The irony is that Sebelius edits an entire magazine. He has
a whole staff of reporters at his disposal. And when have you
ever seen CityLife do the sort of in-depth, game-changing, edgy
journalism that alternative weeklies were born to provide, the
sort that you’d find in the Chicago Reader or the Village Voice
or the Westword in Denver? You know, the sort that actually
exposes real scandal the rest of the media simply can’t ignore?
Oh, sure, every so often there’s a long piece about, say, the
Monofail or some other easy target, but I cannot think of a
single instance where Sebelius’ own publication blew the lid
off anything that shocked the pants off the town.
Indeed, the other precious purpose of the alternative press
is supposed to be keeping the mainstream media in check, and
yet CityLife’s Media Issue this week offers such intriguing
discoveries as the notion that newspapers sometimes make goofy
mistakes that require corrections and – get this! – Spanish-language
TV news is hot! And that’s an improvement over last year’s issue,
in which the fate of an affable local weatherman merited front-page
prominence. One shocking expose indicated, and I’m still not
sure I believe it, that women in TV news are often hired in
part for their pleasing physical appearances!
Recently I was confronted with a choice of whether to move
this column to CityLife. Around the same time, I was embroiled
in a controversy over the fact that Jerry Lewis’ publicist tried
to charge me $20,000 for an interview. Sebelius wondered on
his blog why anyone would even want to interview Jerry Lewis
in the first place.
As I weighed which publication I wished to run my columns,
focused largely on the Strip and Vegas pop culture, I considered
this comment. Why wouldn’t I, as co-host of a popular celeb-interview
podcast about Vegas, want to interview a Vegas legend like Lewis?
Is it really so difficult to imagine that someone like Lewis
would make for a fascinating conversation? (He did, by the way.)
But, more importantly, the question I needed to ask myself
was: Do I really want to wonder if my editor thinks my pieces
are too frivolous for his alleged high standards? When put that
way, it wasn’t a tough decision.
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