At the time the original story broke, I immediately remembered the Hall-Mills Murder case (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall–Mills_murder_case) and the manufactured news story that the media created then. If you'll read about it, the whole Pig Woman thing and the testimony in the courtroom from a hospital bed that was wheeled in, reveals we haven't changed a bit since 1922. It's all lurid gossip.
It was similar to the Lindberg baby murder publicity, with the exception that the Lindberg case involved a bona fide international figure.
And, it reminded me also of the manipulation by the press to create the Spanish-American War.
As a result, I had intense disinterest in the case, from the very beginning, and watched none of it on the news, especially the lame car "chase" that began the story. Just because CNN has 24 hours to fill, doesn't mean that it's news or worth watching.
O.J. was no one to me. I had never watched football. He also was not representative of anyone I knew. He was a celebrity. What happened to him as a black American was hardly representative of whatever would happen to the poor black guy in my county jail who had been arrested for killing his wife.
Bad breakup/divorce ending in murder? Not news, just not pleasant.
Higher incidence of murder in the black population? Not news, just statistically aberrant because it wasn't black-on-black violence for a change.
Racist entrapment by white policemen? Hardly news, but undue focus landed on the racist element perhaps, as policemen who have been too long in the saddle may often confuse vengeance with justice, and plant evidence, far from being racially motivated so much as being burned out and tired of losing cases and seeing the guilty go free.
Sympathy for the victim? Abstractly. I was sorry for the grandmother who was eaten by the wolf, too, but they are just characters, not people I know or ever will know. I'll save my worked up emotions for neighbors, family, and the like. People that are only names will be in the category of law and rationale. I'll vote differently perhaps based on crime in the distance, but not be consumed by whatever the paparazzi throw in my cage.
On the whole, the entire O.J. spectacle marked the beginning of my withdrawal from all TV news to just listening on the radio a bit and some print. It's not new that the industry cares more about sales than news, but it is new that it has become pervasive.
