The Role Media, Analysts Play in Simpson Trial

As a psychologist who studies the role of subjective factors in perception and understanding, I could not help but be pleased by Bill Boyarsky’s column in which he highlights the filtering role that reporters inevitably play in conveying the news (Nov. 24). In wishing that there was television coverage in the O.J. Simpson civil trial right now, he draws an analogy with the era of Franklin Roosevelt: If there had been television at the time, the media could not have filtered out the truth about the president’s physical limitations.

This analogy is tempting but inappropriate. The simple fact of the matter is that the news media in Roosevelt’s time decided, whether collectively or not, that the country need not or should not know how polio had affected Roosevelt. Surely such information was known to the press, who could easily have reported it in print, by radio or in news film. Why didn’t they?

Live television may reduce the media’s filtering role, but even then there are decisions of where to send the camera crew, where to point the camera and which parts shall be included or edited out--these decision points inevitably involve editorial or reportorial judgment and, yes, filtering of a nontrivial degree.

GERALD C. DAVISON

Los Angeles

* Boyarsky is right on target in his criticism of the Simpson trial lawyers now acting as TV network legal analysts in the civil trial (Nov. 20).

From the very beginning--televising trials, running analyses by the supposedly brilliant legal commentators (or should I say “scorekeepers”) with the whole world watching, books being written immediately after a criminal trial by its lawyer participants, especially when related proceedings are still going on, puts our legal system to shame.

I have some concrete suggestions about remedying some of the problems stemming from televising trials: 1) Lawyers who participated in the case should not be permitted to hire out to the networks or the press as analysts or commentators while other proceedings are continuing. 2) For some period of time (perhaps two to five years) following a criminal trial and all ensuing or related proceedings, lawyer participants should not be allowed to profit from writing books about the trial. 3) The television camera should, in fact, be barred from the courtroom.

Lest there be a cry that the proscriptions I have suggested for lawyers interfere with their right of free speech, we should remember that many restraints are imposed on lawyers by the State Bar and the Rules of Professional Conduct.

S. DELL SCOTT

Sherman Oaks