Turning murder into overkill
REALITY-TV FEED HAS ALL THE ANSWERS -- EXCEPT THE ONES THAT REALLY MATTER
By Carol Pogash
Posted on Sun, Aug. 15, 2004
Christmas came early to cable ``news'' this year. Scott Peterson's onetime lover, the stone-faced blond, Amber Frey, finally testified in his double-murder trial. Her appearance unleashed a maelstrom of punditry, ``expanded editions,'' timelines (blind date, champagne and strawberries, etc.) and captions such as ``Amber Frey believed Scott Peterson was single,'' for the insight impaired.
The reporting was fast, breathless. If the facts couldn't create the drama, the ``reporters'' would.
``We'll get a late-breaking report on what she just said moments ago!'' promised MSNBC's Dan Abrams.
Nancy Grace, the Oliver Wendell Holmes of cable TV, assured Court TV viewers, ``We will be here late into the night.''
``Buckle your seat belts,'' she advised, before switching to a reporter on the scene with a ``Hit it! Beth!''
Showgirl attorneys with long hair and longer legs, and their less-flashy male counterparts, offered analyses on the law, psychology and the deeper meaning of having sex on a first date. Other experts, those with short gray hair and glasses, shared the stage, but briefly.
Frey's attorney, the media-savvy Gloria Allred, popped up like a jack-in-the-box on every TV station that would have her.
Abrams: ``How is she holding up?''
Allred: ``Thank you for asking, Dan. She's holding up.''
In fact, Allred had much more to say, sharing critical information that makes her a must-have on the all-Amber-all-the-time shows. Tuesday, she revealed that -- here comes a news flash -- during the morning break, Justin, Amber Frey's new baby, ``had his little breakfast and she changed his diaper.''
With no shortage of hyperbole, a true-crime author with the improbable name of Aphrodite Jones declared on Fox's ``O'Reilly Factor'' that Frey was ``the most anticipated witness in the history of crime trials.'' Nancy Graves was more succinct. She just called it D-day.
Cotton candy news
San Francisco's first lady, Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom, a former assistant district attorney last seen splayed out on a rug at the Getty mansion (in a Harper's Bazaar spread), told Court TV viewers that Scott's romancing of Amber sounded like a Harlequin romance. She liked the phrase so much that a few minutes later, she said the same thing on CNN.
This is cotton candy news: pleasing, full of air and easy to swallow, but lacking fiber.
Focusing on the only current video snippet available, TV repeatedly showed Frey in a tasteful black suit descending an escalator last week, with the same mock importance of O.J. Simpson's chase.
While the public is sorely divided between the red states Bush and the blue states Kerry, it can agree on one thing: Scott Peterson was a three-dozen-roses-toting cad.
The seriousness given the Peterson trial diverted our attention away from the stalling job market and the rise of violence in An-Najaf, Iraq. Not even someone with the star power of Christiane Amanpour could sway viewers to care about starving children in Sudan. Starvation doesn't sell Red Lobster, green Jaguars or the softer side of Wal-Mart.
At least some anchors recognized there was more news in the world this week. Deborah Norville, for example, segued from Laci to ``the skeletal remains at the landfill'' in the Lori and Mark Hacking case.
New Yorker writer and attorney Jeffrey Toobin had the poor taste to point out that Amber Frey was far less important than the fact that Scott Peterson went fishing in the bay just where his wife's body later washed up. No one asked him to elaborate.
Legal entertainment
As we move into an era of hyper consumerism, cable TV news is being tailored to our preferences.
And Amber Frey sells.
Experts told us that her hair has changed -- she did away with the Farrah Fawcett wings -- and in court she wore ``two-inch black pumps with bows,'' a reporter on the scene advised.
The narrow masseuse is a symbol of a rotten marriage, a lying husband and a young woman who wanted to believe that he was her charming savior. For viewers, she only exists in context.
To elevate a crime trial to carnival status takes ``reporters'' and legal experts willing to spew out an epiphany a minute. Scott may have been more than a cad; he may be a sociopath. Amber has a baby to take care of and Laci does not. Their ``insights'' are all within a confined range.
No one steps out of bounds to wonder why the case of young-men-killing-their-wives has become part of the national obsession.
No one says that if Scott and Laci hadn't looked like the king and queen of the prom, they might have been relegated to a short squib on the obit page. If she been taller than her husband, or had a crooked nose, the audience that likes reality shows would not have signed on. Had the Petersons been Asian, Latino or African-American, the public would not be so riveted.
``Why'' goes so deep into our national prejudices that the pundits wouldn't venture there. Real thought doesn't sell.
We are left with their oh-so-limited insights. Tuesday night, Paula Zahn took the opportunity to run through a hit parade of notorious crime cases. As the image of Kato Kaelin popped on the screen, she observed, ``For some reason these witnesses became legendary.'' One thing CNN must lack is a mirror. Then she just as cheerfully told viewers to check back tomorrow for the new trend: Christian Comedy!
CAROL POGASH is a Bay Area writer whose stories frequently appear in the New York Times. She wrote this article for Perspective.
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