Has the media learned anything for the reason that OJ Simpson trial?

With the death of OJ SimpsonI’m wondering if the media has learned any lessons from the coverage of his trial, through which the ex-football star was acquitted of charges of murdering his ex-wife and her friend.

In some ways, the “Trial of the century” brought out a few of the media’s worst impulses.

As criminologist Gregg Barak explainedThe OJ Simpson case was a veritable “spectacle” – essentially a nine-month live news cycle. At the identical time, the case was followed on account of Simpson's fame in popular culture.

Of course, crime has at all times sparked morbid interest, captured media attention, and inspired true crime narratives.

But for the reason that late twentieth century this has happened more continuously – sometimes even before the tip of the trial. The boundaries between news and entertainment have gotten increasingly blurred – what criminologist Ray Surette calls “Infotainment” – Race, class and the pursuit of rankings influence what crimes are covered and the way they’re portrayed.

Process through the media

Whenever I teach the OJ Simpson trial in my criminal justice courses, I bring up a late nineteenth century murder case involving an upper-class white woman named Lizzie Borden.

Both Simpson and Borden were charged with double murder – and each trials became a media frenzy.

In August 1892, Andrew Borden, a wealthy businessman, and Abby, his second wife, were bludgeoned to death of their home in Fall River, Massachusetts. Her 32-year-old daughter Lizzie was accused of killing her father and hated stepmother and have become the topic of in depth media coverage.

A century before OJ Simpson hired what the media called a lawyer.Dream Team“Borden had a star defense team that included a former governor and the Borden family attorney. As within the Simpson case, the legal strategies of the prosecutor and the Borden defense team were subject to intense media scrutiny.

Most of the evidence against Borden was circumstantial; In the tip, she was acquitted by an all-male jury that would hardly imagine that a decent spinster could commit such a terrible crime.

Still, Borden was never capable of escape the stigma of being charged with murder. After her release, she was ostracized by former friends. For years, newspaper coverage documented Borden's life after her acquittal. Since her death, the countless books, articles, a television movie – even a recent television series about Borden's life after the trial – reveal the endurance of the high-profile trial within the nineteenth century.

Like Borden, Simpson was capable of use his class and wealth to his advantage. But he was also sore during and after his trial.

Celebrity crimes make good television

Of course, there was no television in Borden's time.

On October 3, 1995 an estimated 150 million Americans tuned in to listen to the jury's verdict within the OJ Simpson trial. It was the culmination of 16 months of in depth prime-time television coverage.

On the evening of June 12, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and her boyfriend Ronald Lyle Goldman were stabbed to death outside Nicole Simpson's exclusive condo in Los Angeles, California. After police followed OJ Simpson's white Bronco in a slow speed chase that fascinated television viewersOJ Simpson was arrested and charged with the murders.

For the printed networks and their fledgling cable news counterparts, it was a recipe for giant drama — and high rankings.

As a captivated nation glued to its televisions, radios and newspapers, the media fielded a series of trial experts to supply every day commentary. This bill would grow to be the norm for future celebrity trials cottage industry of legal experts would seem on the airwaves to comment on cases of Tom Brady’s “Deflategate” lawsuit To the costs against former President Donald Trump since leaving office in 2021.

Post-trial investigations have revealed that the audience's perception of guilt or innocence within the Simpson trial was shaped by the quantity – and kind – of media consumed. The more involved someone was within the day-to-day goings-on of the trial, the more likely they were to grow to be emotionally invested in OJ's life. By developing a so-called parasocial bond, they increasingly believed in his innocence.

How the media highlights crime and race

When the jury found Simpson innocent, the response largely fell along racial lines. Crowds of white Americans reacted with shock, dismay — even anger — while droves of black Americans responded with elation.

Survey And Survey It later emerged that individuals's reactions to the decision reflected not only their opinions about Simpson's guilt or innocence, but in addition their beliefs about race and the fairness of the country's criminal justice system.

Scholars today also recognize that the media often relies on tropes and stereotypes to construct narratives about crime and justice.

These constructs, shaped and reinforced by the media, influence the perception of perpetrators and victims. For example, a 2004 study found that newspaper reporting tends to depersonalize female victims of violent crime. And a 2018 study found that a mass perpetrator's race influences how the media covers the crime and the defendants, portraying white criminals' violent acts as unlucky anomalies of circumstance and mental illness.

Simpson's own relationship with race has at all times been complicated.

In a 1970 New York Times article titled “New progress for the black athlete“Reporter Robert Lipsyte quoted Simpson describing how he heard a racial slur while attending a marriage with predominantly white guests. Lipsyte wrote that race relations would need to improve dramatically for Simpson to be “able to overcome the blackness in his public image.”

In the Nineteen Nineties, Simpson looked as if it would have done just that. A middle-aged OJ had achieved celebrity status, and he looked as if it would have overcome that blackness by distancing himself from poor and working-class black people while gaining the acceptance of whites who saw him as a star who went against the trimmings was resistant to racist stereotypes.

Despite a couple of incidents of domestic violence, Simpson was able to keep up this good popularity – until he was accused of murdering his white ex-wife and her friend.

Simpson's fall from grace was symbolized by a controversial 1994 Time magazine cover photo. what some claim was altered to make Simpson's skin appear darker.

By 2014, the gap between how blacks and whites viewed Simpson's verdict had narrowed: Black people were rather more more likely to be believed that Simpson was guilty.

Simpson's fragile public image, nonetheless, served as a reminder of the boundaries of his ability to transcend race. And there isn’t a indication that they’re black Americans have more confidence within the U.S. criminal justice system today as 1995.