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News : Jackson Trial Not Must-See TV
[LatelineNews] LOS ANGELES - If the Michael Jackson trial had been televised, the public would have gotten more civics and less circus.
Gone would be MSNBC's puppet theater, the E! Entertainment trial re-enactments, the dependence on analysts eager for airtime - all displaced by a daily dose of the sober machinery of justice.
But would people have watched?
For legal and media experts, it's arguable whether the case's failure to grip the public like other celebrity trials - or even the Scott Peterson murder case - would have been changed by courtroom cameras.
In the trial that set the bar for audience fixation, O.J. Simpson's solid, good-guy image was shockingly cast in doubt by murder charges. With Jackson, his odd life has repeatedly been put through the media mill.
``There was a sense that everything we were hearing we'd heard before,'' said TV scholar Robert Thompson. ``This was like a rerun. ... So much of this had already been on, there were no bombshells dropped.''
``This turned out to be a story that didn't even have enough traction to compete with the runaway bride, which blew Michael Jackson off the screen for a week and a half,'' said Thompson, head of Syracuse University's Center for the Study of Popular Television.
An early indication of public indifference came when footage aired of Jackson performing an impromptu dance on an SUV's roof after pleading innocent to child-molestation charges in January 2004.
``I was saying to myself, `Boy, oh boy, I can't wait to see what the numbers are for this thing,''' recalled Jerry Burke, Fox News Channel's daytime executive producer.
But he said the incident didn't rate with viewers, as it turned out. Burke calls the trial itself ``turnoff TV'' for graphic sexual references and language such as ``Jesus juice'' as a nickname for wine.
Talk shows with a legal focus, including CNN Headline News' program with Nancy Grace and Greta Van Susteren's show on Fox News, predictably feasted on the story - yet it still didn't achieve genuine watercooler status.
Even the courtroom artists who expected to hit a gold mine when cameras were barred found themselves disappointed.
``We thought Jackson would be two to three times as big'' as the Peterson trial, Vicki Behringer said, speaking for herself and fellow artists. ``We were greatly disappointed.''
Court TV did get a ratings boost from Jackson, with daily daytime viewership averaging 399,000 since it began in February, a 138 percent increase over the same period last year.
But the Peterson case, in which cameras were also barred, helped draw 352,000 average daily viewers to Court TV. The audience swelled when Peterson's guilty verdict was announced, and the same is expected when jurors decide Jackson's fate, with hundreds of journalists from around the world in Santa Maria, Calif., to cover the verdict.
Media organizations made a bid to televise all or parts of Jackson's trial, but were rejected by Judge Rodney S. Melville.
Viewers should have been able to see the controlled seriousness of the courtroom in contrast to the unrestrained ``hoopla'' outside, said lawyer Ted Boutrous, who represented The Associated Press and others on access issues.
Televising the proceedings would have provided a public service and drawn more viewers, said Court TV chief executive Henry Schleiff, whose niche channel clearly has much at stake on the issue.
``When people see and hear testimony with their own eyes and ears, we have a better opportunity to understand how a verdict can be reached,'' Schleiff said.
The army of legal commentators pressed into service in lieu of courtroom footage proved, in some cases, to be a disservice to viewers, contends veteran trial attorney Rikki Klieman, herself a Court TV analyst.
``Some of these people wouldn't even know where to stand in a courtroom, let alone deliver a blistering closing argument ... but the world thinks they know what they're talking about,'' said Klieman.
Whether cameras in the courtroom would have affected more than just analysis - changing the very way the case was tried - is uncertain. But Howard Weitzman, who represented Jackson in a child molestation claim that was settled, feels the televising of any trial can have a negative effect on the proceedings.
In the Simpson criminal case, which ended in an acquittal, ``I think the judge, the lawyers involved and most of the witnesses acted differently than they would have if there had not been cameras in the courtroom,'' said Weitzman, who once represented Simpson.
For Jackson, some TV outlets made do with creative substitutions - such as E! Entertainment's daily re-enactment of selected parts of the trial, with a heavily made-up actor playing Jackson. A panel of lawyers (including Klieman and Weitzman) analyzed the testimony.
Keith Olbermann, the host of MSNBC's ``Countdown,'' was gladdened by the no-camera ruling, in part because it gave birth to his show's ``Michael Jackson Puppet Theater.''
The ``theater'' featured wooden sticks topped by cartoonish drawings of participants in the case (as well as Jackson's pet chimp). The aim was to mock journalistic excess as well as aspects of the trial, Olbermann said.
Would cameras have been a courtroom improvement?
``For their (the viewers) psychological and sociological health,'' Olbermann replied, ``I don't think they missed a damn thing.''
http://dailynews.muzi.com/ll/english/1366915.shtml
[LatelineNews] LOS ANGELES - If the Michael Jackson trial had been televised, the public would have gotten more civics and less circus.
Gone would be MSNBC's puppet theater, the E! Entertainment trial re-enactments, the dependence on analysts eager for airtime - all displaced by a daily dose of the sober machinery of justice.
But would people have watched?
For legal and media experts, it's arguable whether the case's failure to grip the public like other celebrity trials - or even the Scott Peterson murder case - would have been changed by courtroom cameras.
In the trial that set the bar for audience fixation, O.J. Simpson's solid, good-guy image was shockingly cast in doubt by murder charges. With Jackson, his odd life has repeatedly been put through the media mill.
``There was a sense that everything we were hearing we'd heard before,'' said TV scholar Robert Thompson. ``This was like a rerun. ... So much of this had already been on, there were no bombshells dropped.''
``This turned out to be a story that didn't even have enough traction to compete with the runaway bride, which blew Michael Jackson off the screen for a week and a half,'' said Thompson, head of Syracuse University's Center for the Study of Popular Television.
An early indication of public indifference came when footage aired of Jackson performing an impromptu dance on an SUV's roof after pleading innocent to child-molestation charges in January 2004.
``I was saying to myself, `Boy, oh boy, I can't wait to see what the numbers are for this thing,''' recalled Jerry Burke, Fox News Channel's daytime executive producer.
But he said the incident didn't rate with viewers, as it turned out. Burke calls the trial itself ``turnoff TV'' for graphic sexual references and language such as ``Jesus juice'' as a nickname for wine.
Talk shows with a legal focus, including CNN Headline News' program with Nancy Grace and Greta Van Susteren's show on Fox News, predictably feasted on the story - yet it still didn't achieve genuine watercooler status.
Even the courtroom artists who expected to hit a gold mine when cameras were barred found themselves disappointed.
``We thought Jackson would be two to three times as big'' as the Peterson trial, Vicki Behringer said, speaking for herself and fellow artists. ``We were greatly disappointed.''
Court TV did get a ratings boost from Jackson, with daily daytime viewership averaging 399,000 since it began in February, a 138 percent increase over the same period last year.
But the Peterson case, in which cameras were also barred, helped draw 352,000 average daily viewers to Court TV. The audience swelled when Peterson's guilty verdict was announced, and the same is expected when jurors decide Jackson's fate, with hundreds of journalists from around the world in Santa Maria, Calif., to cover the verdict.
Media organizations made a bid to televise all or parts of Jackson's trial, but were rejected by Judge Rodney S. Melville.
Viewers should have been able to see the controlled seriousness of the courtroom in contrast to the unrestrained ``hoopla'' outside, said lawyer Ted Boutrous, who represented The Associated Press and others on access issues.
Televising the proceedings would have provided a public service and drawn more viewers, said Court TV chief executive Henry Schleiff, whose niche channel clearly has much at stake on the issue.
``When people see and hear testimony with their own eyes and ears, we have a better opportunity to understand how a verdict can be reached,'' Schleiff said.
The army of legal commentators pressed into service in lieu of courtroom footage proved, in some cases, to be a disservice to viewers, contends veteran trial attorney Rikki Klieman, herself a Court TV analyst.
``Some of these people wouldn't even know where to stand in a courtroom, let alone deliver a blistering closing argument ... but the world thinks they know what they're talking about,'' said Klieman.
Whether cameras in the courtroom would have affected more than just analysis - changing the very way the case was tried - is uncertain. But Howard Weitzman, who represented Jackson in a child molestation claim that was settled, feels the televising of any trial can have a negative effect on the proceedings.
In the Simpson criminal case, which ended in an acquittal, ``I think the judge, the lawyers involved and most of the witnesses acted differently than they would have if there had not been cameras in the courtroom,'' said Weitzman, who once represented Simpson.
For Jackson, some TV outlets made do with creative substitutions - such as E! Entertainment's daily re-enactment of selected parts of the trial, with a heavily made-up actor playing Jackson. A panel of lawyers (including Klieman and Weitzman) analyzed the testimony.
Keith Olbermann, the host of MSNBC's ``Countdown,'' was gladdened by the no-camera ruling, in part because it gave birth to his show's ``Michael Jackson Puppet Theater.''
The ``theater'' featured wooden sticks topped by cartoonish drawings of participants in the case (as well as Jackson's pet chimp). The aim was to mock journalistic excess as well as aspects of the trial, Olbermann said.
Would cameras have been a courtroom improvement?
``For their (the viewers) psychological and sociological health,'' Olbermann replied, ``I don't think they missed a damn thing.''
http://dailynews.muzi.com/ll/english/1366915.shtml