FORWARDED FROM: /professional/law/first/news(#409) From:croth(Chris Roth)
                      14 December 1995
                    Opinion and Analysis
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    J   O   U   R   N   A   L   I   S   M     L   I   T   E     #  9
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               Topics in this issue:

               * coverage of the Simpson trial

               * invisibility of "the religion card"
                 in content diffused via news outlets
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                      ==========
                      DEFICIENCY
                      ==========
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::
::
::
::::::overage of events surrounding Orenthal James Simpson in 1994
and 1995 were unprecedented. Professor Dave Berkman, media critic
for the alternative Milwaukee weekly _Shepherd Express_, deemed the freeway
chase as "the most transfixing six hours in television history." This puts
the Apollo 11 moonwalk in an interesting perspective.

What-a-year-it-was TV specials are
about to remind Americans once again of the Simpson saga.
[Indeed, the first year-in-review
already aired on CBS on 13 December 1995--19 days before 1996
even begins.]

Network TV, basic cable, local TV stations, radio network,
radio stations, magazines, national newspapers, and local newspaper
reporters, columnists, and editorialists diffused
endless analyses of the Simpson trial and verdict.

Yet even in this gee-whiz
age of fiber optics, mobile satellite uplinks, portable
FAX machines, live helicopter feeds, and computer-assisted journalism,
a huge societal faction enjoyed exemption from scrutiny: religionists.

 ::::
::  ::
::::::
::  ::
::  ::lthough it was permissible to discuss the alleged playing
of "the race card" [articulated, ironically, by defense attorney
Robert Shapiro], it was the repeated use of the religion card
that was actively kept invisible–deliberately or
inadvertently–by media workers. Why anger clergymen?

                 ==============
                 FRAME ANALYSIS
                 ==============
::
::
::
::
::n the culture of 1995, any ordinary analysis of religious
ideas is beyond the boundaries of socially-acceptable
discussion or debate. Presented below is part of the pattern
of superstition unreported in 1994 and 1995.
[see UNREPORTED PATTERN, below].

                     ======
                     EFFECT
                     ======
::::::
  ::
  ::
  ::
  ::he calculated pushing of irrational "hot buttons"
by "the dream team" was a newsworthy issue,
deficient reportage notwithstanding. It may have caused
jurors to submit no-guilt votes despite the overwhelming
evidence provided by prosecutors.

[Insofar as the impact of let's-keep-the-religious-component-
of-the-defense's-pitch-invisible on media users, see
mass communication research
findings on the agenda-setting function of
news outlets, frame analysis*, and
the newly-discovered "spiral of silence."]

                 ==================
                 UNREPORTED PATTERN
::  ::           ==================
::  ::
::::::
::  ::
::  ::ere is an excerpt from Orenthal James Simpson’s
mass market book titled _I want to Tell You_. Despite
DNA findings, the book asserted–in several places–
that the admitted wifebeater was innocent.

[begin book excerpt]

Some of the letters validated what my mother was telling
me over and over, that the Lord was really forging me
for something else, something better.

[end book excerpt]

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::  ::
::  ::
::  ::
::::::n 23 June 1994, Reverend Richard Halverson led the US
Senate in a prayer. The clergyman did not mention
either of the LA CA murder victims.

[begin prayer excerpt]

We pray for O.J., whether he is innocent or guilty
rests with our system of justice. But our hearts
go out to him in his profound loss.

[end prayer excerpt]

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::  ::
::  ::
::  ::
::::::n 30 January 1995, defense attorney Johnnie Cochran
told the jury:

[begin excerpt]

He, like all of us, has made mistakes. Of course, we
know of only one perfect person that ever walked the
earth.

[Cochran did not tell the jury that his own ex-wife, in
her book, alleged that the flashy attorney had slapped her 'round.]

[content deleted]

He has been blessed bountifully by god, shared his largess
with many, many people.

[end excerpt]

::::::
::  ::
::  ::
::  ::
::::::n 12 February 1995, the jurors were led on a tour through
the murder suspect’s posh mansion. One of the tables
sported a neatly-placed Bible.

::::::
::
:::::
::
::ive months later, one of the "dream team"
attorneys argued against jury access to test results
produced by a credentialed scientist. The following
sentences began at 12:25 PM EST on 24 July 1995.

[begin excerpt]

The hand of almighty god can make anything happen.

[content deleted]

[The scientific certainty is] not 100%, because he’s not god.

[end excerpt]

::::::
::
:::::
::
::rom Cochran’s 28 September 1995 closing arguments:

[begin excerpt]

The Book of Luke talks about that.

[content deleted]

In Proverbs it talks a lot about false witnesses.

[end excerpt]

::  ::
::  ::
::::::
::  ::
::  ::ere’s an excerpt from a post-verdict local TV report
aired in Milwaukee WI. "M’woky"–a major American city–is noted
for its averageness by demographers.

WITI-TV [VHF 6, SE WI] reporter Rosalind Jordan spoke to viewers about
the differing views of
Americans on the controversial verdict. Citizen opinions
were, to a significant degree, divided along racial lines.
Milwaukeeans were interviewed. Canned footage. Ms.Jordan’s concluding
sentence aired at 9:13 PM CST on 11 October 1995. Here it is:

[begin excerpt]

Communication, including prayers, seem to be the answer.

[end excerpt]

The same newscast included a Fox feed from CA. Topic?
Reversal of Simpson’s agreement to be interviewed
at length by NBC journalists. The reporter,
speaking about a 500-person let’s-silence-NBC News rally in Burbank,
yapped about a nonexistent "National Organization of Women."

In fact, the group that demanded censorship
–working with local animal rights groups–was the LA chapter of the
National Organization for Women.

::::::
  ::
  ::
  ::
  ::hat same week in October, one male juror was interviewed
a network journalist. In the first prime time, one-to-one,
at-length interview with any juror, the interviewer asked him how
he made it through the trial. On nationwide television,
the juror mentioned prayer.
_____________________________________________________________________
FOOTNOTES

*Here is an excerpt from page 7 of Todd Gitlin’s 1980 book
_The Whole World is Watching_:

[begin excerpt]

[Media frames are defined as] persistent patterns of cognition,
interpretation, and presentation, of selection, emphasis, and
exclusion, by which symbol-handlers routinely organize discourse,
whether verbal or visual.

Frames enable journalists to process large amounts of information
quickly and routinely: to recognize it as information, to assign
it to cognitive categories and to package it for efficient
relay to their audience.

[end excerpt]

See also E. Goffman’s 1974 _Frame Analysis: An Essay on the
Organization of Experience_.

                                       (c) 1995 by Chris Roth.
                                       All rights reserved.
                                       fi…@omnifest.uwm.edu