Revisiting the O.J. circus, the media is guilty again

It's one thing for O.J. Simpson to take time out of his busy schedule of golfing and not looking for his ex-wife's killer to make himself available for the networks. It's quite another for those networks to climb all over one another like crabs in a bucket to secure an ``exclusive'' interview with the football Hall of Famer.

The 10th anniversary of the still-officially unsolved murders of Simpson's former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman isn't until Saturday, but for weeks the networks have been happily dusting off clips of the bloody Brentwood walkway where the bodies were found and of the slow-speed chase with Simpson's white Ford Bronco that marked the opening act of what continues to be our national theater of the absurd.

Then there is Simpson himself, all insouciance and arrogance, blaming his dead ex-wife's fast ways for her brutal demise, and chiding her for not being around to help him raise their two children. (I'm guessing Nicole is none too happy about it either.)

Of course, whatever his sins, Simpson isn't forcing anyone to put him in front of a camera, lights, and some interviewer who believes he can be coaxed into revealing something new about himself or the murders. It's the networks who insist on foisting Simpson on us, long after we've moved on and done our best to forget Lance Ito, Kato Kaelin, and everything else connected with the tedious distraction that became foolishly known as ``The Trial of the Century.''

And the networks can't even play nice while doing it. NBC execs are all in a snit because they believe they were undermined when excerpts from Simpson's interview with Fox News' Greta Van Susteren ran before NBC could air last Friday's ``Dateline'' segment with Katie Couric questioning Simpson. (This morning, NBC is scheduled to have still more Simpson moments on the ``Today'' show.)

What's so exclusive about an interview with Simpson is anyone's guess. He's hardly made himself scarce in the nine years since he was acquitted. He's always popped up from time to time to maintain his innocence and reassure us all that he's getting along just fine. And with a combination of audacity and creepiness, he has even appeared on the ``E! True Hollywood Story'' segment about the murders.

Even without a murder conviction, Simpson is a more sedate version of Charles Manson who, for decades, has turned his wacky, scary-guy rants into solid ratings for various networks even when he's talking loud and saying absolutely nothing.

In any event, one would think the networks wouldn't be so eager to recall the murders, since saturation coverage of the case marked the beginning of the broadcast media's interminable slide. Whatever our reactions to the killings, or the troubling subplots of race, police culpability, and domestic violence, it was the perfect storm of celebrity and violence - our true national pastimes - that fueled countless headlines and hours of broadcast time.

It was the moment when the media tossed aside news judgment and made a blatant appeal to the lowest common denominator for ratings.

CNN's Larry King famously said, ``If we had God booked and O.J. was available, we'd move God.'' And for more than a year, it was all O.J. all the time, with an endless array of chatty know-nothings parading across TV screens with a grim-faced punditry that some of them, like Van Susteren, parlayed into their own shows.

Any separation between hard news and fluff quickly collapsed as the trial received as much attention on CNN and NBC as on ``Entertainment Tonight'' and the ``E!'' cable channel. Yes, it was a shock when Simpson, a once-loved athlete and ad pitchman, whose bland handsomeness and affable manner appealed to many, was accused of a double murder. But it was even more surprising when it all became inescapable, and the networks - who have clearly learned nothing about responsibility and restraint in the past decade - covered the case as if national security itself depended on the outcome.

So Simpson, who never really left, is back again, now sharing airtime with his peculiar progeny. To name a few, there's the Michael Jackson molestation case, Scott Peterson's trial, and the many marriages of Jennifer Lopez - all covered as legitimate news stories, alongside the war in Iraq, the presidential campaign, and ever-present threats of terrorism on American soil. At this crucial time in our nation's history, the networks' pathetic embrace of Simpson, and its unwitting commemoration of the media's decline, sadly reminds us that two lives weren't the only things lost on a June evening 10 years ago.

Renee Graham's Life in the Pop Lane column appears on Tuesdays. She can be reached at graham@globe.com