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[Boston Globe Online: Print it!]
THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING
Why can't we stop watching
By Diane Asadorian, 1/20/2002
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/020/focus/Why_can_t_we_stop_watchingP.shtml
Louise Woodward. Pamela Smart. Susan Smith. The Menendez brothers. You
know who they are.
Now add to the list Thomas Junta. Their criminal cases shared a common
path: starting in obscurity, soaring in public interest, and ending in
notoriety amid torrid debates around the nation's water coolers. Their
once-unknown names now resonate, some in our consciousness, others just
below the surface.
Thousands of cases are decided in criminal courts every month. The vast
majority of such prosecutions, no matter how horrific the charges,
remain mired in obscurity, perhaps prompting one-column headlines deep
in newspaper metro sections, or 15-second videotape clips with
voice-overs on the nightly local news.
But a few magnetic criminal cases clearly take on lives of their own,
racing toward Page 1, ''Larry King Live,'' eventually even publishers or
movie studios.
Sentencing in the Junta ''hockey dad'' case is scheduled for Friday,
when the national media will swarm the Middlesex County Courthouse once
again to record the final scene. Meanwhile, the shocking
child-molestation case of former priest John J. Geoghan played out in
the same courthouse last week, resulting in another guilty verdict. That
case, which drew strong regional interest, attracted little national
attention despite its explosive nature and its debate-spawning issues.
The contrast is unsettling. Why do some cases draw the media and the
public while others don't? And why do some trials rivet the public, even
as they often repel at the same time?
''Some trials just hit a nerve,'' said Barry Schindel, executive
producer of the hit network courtroom drama ''Law and Order.'' Schindel
should know: The series had a fictionalized hockey dad murder case more
than a year ago. He says that subjects are often taken from the
headlines: ''These cases are usually representative of what's going on
in society today. They represent an undercurrent.''
Whether a case is of public import does not necessarily make it a draw.
There are far more important cases that present more challenging legal
issues that just don't captivate the mass audience.
Dan Abrams, chief legal correspondent for NBC News and anchor of ''The
Abrams Report'' on MSNBC, says, ''When an issue emerges of great
interest to a lot of people, that's still not enough. Even with those,
it has to be a close case. An open and shut case is not as interesting
as one where people will be on both sides.'' The dynamic attention of
the case - did he or didn't he - is as much a part of the attraction as
the importance of the subject matter.
When a case clicks, the appeal is sweeping. Even media insiders can get
caught up in the latest courtroom saga. ''With the Junta case, we found
ourselves talking about the case, not just as journalists, but as news
consumers and parents,'' said Andrew Heyward, president of CBS News. He
cited the Woodward ''baby-shaking nanny'' case, which occurred in Newton
and prompted a massive media swirl, as having similar resonance.
''Everyone worries about who cares for their children,'' he said.
Beyond the matter of how people behave, there is the matter of how they
tick. That was the appeal of the Pam Smart case, in which a southern New
Hampshire high school teacher was convicted of recruiting students to
kill her husband. It was a case that eventually prompted a major movie.
''Trials are about people at their worst,'' said Michael Shapiro, a
journalism professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of
Journalism. ''I covered courts for a long time. Housing court is not
particularly interesting, but trials are interesting when you have
people's motives revealed. Then it is like watching a novel with
interesting characters, with the occasional interruption of an expert
witness.''
''There's something Hitchcockian about them,'' Shapiro continued.
''Usually they are about ordinary people who find themselves in
extraordinary situations, or they are extraordinary people brought
low.'' For the former, think Bernhard Goetz, the N.Y. subway shooter, or
Woodward. For the latter, think O.J. Simpson, Leona Helmsley, Patty
Hearst, William Kennedy Smith, and Robert Downey Jr.
''We have celebrity or quasi-celebrity cases,'' Abrams agreed. ''And
then we have the human interest story with a really interesting
confluence of somewhat unpredictable factors. It is more than who is on
trial.'' Heyward said of such a case: ''It is the quotidian event which
we can all identify with, in an exaggerated form with tragic
consequences.''
Like gripping novels, the plots of such cases are intriguing, the
characters complicated, and the relationships curious. The cases have a
simple, easily grasped structure: a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Moreover, the jury system allows us to participate on an intellectual
level, to replicate in our own minds and with our own friends what the
verdicts should be. Schindel, a former defense attorney, said, ''Legal
cases and legal dramas offer you the ability to decide who you think is
right or wrong.''
Some crime stories that one might expect to register with the public
simply don't because they lack the necessary subtlety. Los Angeles
psychiatrist Carole Lieberman, asked why the execution of Timothy
McVeigh, who was put to death last June for the Oklahoma City bombing,
didn't register with the public the way Junta or Woodward did, said,
''He bombed a building. We didn't connect him to the personal stories.''
Lieberman said it is a case's mystery and soap opera quality that often
holds our interest, rather than the seriousness of the crime.
One thing appears certain. There will be more such cases emanating from
ever-more-obscure courtrooms. With network, cable, and local television
stations all looking for programming, trials in the end not only provide
justice. They provide news and entertainment at low cost. According to
Tom Wolzien, media analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York,
these cases get covered in part because ''They are cheap, diversionary
programming. Talk is cheap, and dramatic talk is cheaper.''
Wolzien, a former news producer at NBC, said, ''This is journalism by
exception. It is making journalistic judgments based on what is outside
the norm.'' And, because news organizations take their cues from one
another, he said of the Junta case, ''Who knows if people actually
wanted to watch it? But for a few days there was no getting away from
it.''
Philip Balboni, president of New England Cable News, thought his network
gave the Junta case an appropriate amount of coverage, given that his is
a 24-hour regional news channel. However, he was surprised when The New
York Times ran Junta's photo above the fold on the front page. The
verdict also made the front page of the Times. Since the case resulted
only in a conviction of involuntary manslaughter, the key factor in its
placement was likely its drama and its centrality as a topic around the
national coffeemaker.
Marlene Dann, senior vice president of daytime programming at Court TV,
which lives off such fare, outlined the cable network's process for
choosing cases. A ''trial tracking unit'' meets weekly to review
upcoming cases and examines the issues, witness lists, and lawyers
involved. The meeting is open to the whole company. Dann said she knew
instantly that the Junta case would resonate. ''I wasn't surprised, just
because of the issues involved and who the witnesses were. With the
hockey dad, I knew right away that it would generate a lot of
attention.''
With Junta about to be sentenced, where will the focus turn next? Court
TV moved to televise the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged 20th
hijacker in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but a judge ruled Friday
against the network's request. Still, there's always another prospect.
Schindel thinks we'd rather watch what happens to American Taliban
member John Walker in the courtroom - and on our television screens -
than we would Moussaoui, who may have been a far bigger player in
targeting America.
He's likely right about that, yet there'll be only one sure way to find
out. Stay tuned.
This story ran on page G1 of the Boston Globe on 1/20/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.
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