As long as I can remember I have wanted to write. In my sophomore year of high school, I took Mr. Oswalt’s newspaper writing class and fell in love with journalism.
Journalism – the feel of it. The way it pumped through my blood and dripped words out the tips of my fingers. To me, there was nothing more important than the responsibility of the media and the enormous power driving the American press to the realms of divine truth and educational influence.
All things change with time. As in many relationships where feeling is involved, love and hate can reveal themselves to be equal parts of opposite emotions.
Tuesday night, the President of the United States addressed our nation with the State of the Union speech, an event usually televised on every channel regardless of public opinion of what is newsworthy. Unfortunately, last Tuesday I guess the president was just not good enough because the speech fell on the same night the judgment for the O.J. Simpson civil trial was announced.
Even the television networks CBS, NBC and ABC had all day coverage of the verdict. At about 5:30 p.m., the opening of the State of the Union address began to interfere with the live coverage of the street outside the Simpson mansion, so the State of the Union was boxed off to the corner of the television screen until the very last minute prior to Bill Clinton actually talking, when the networks had no other choice but turn away from precious O.J. Watch ’97 to let the President speak. The independent stations, KTLA, KCAL, KTTV and KCOP, did not even bat an eye for Clinton – they just kept the air cluttered with footage on what they considered to be the big local story.
The word “footage” is a grave understatement considering all the television had to offer on the verdict, due to a gag order by the court, was a variety of shots ranging from a helicopter view of O.J. on the freeway driving to the Santa Monica courthouse, the Goldmans in a glass elevator of a nearby hotel and a third story window which was supposed to be where NBC reporter Tracy Savage was talking to us from her cellular phone “live from inside the courthouse.”
O.J. has been the most controversial public figure of this decade and his criminal trial remains to be the biggest hoax of the 20th century. Yes, the verdict of the civil trial was an important event because it showed Americans what might have happened 16 months ago if all of the evidence had been allowed into the first trial.
However, the handling of the case on Tuesday proved how full of itself the media is. It was another case of the media watching the media. The courthouse was turned into a circus of protesters chanting, reporters name dropping and spectators swarming. Considering all of this, I suppose the news gives us what we crave, but no longer do they give us what we need.
Nowadays, the news just is not news anymore. There is no love for journalism by the ones we look to for the story. The story is just what happens to be the hot topic for the day. In today’s world, the truth is irrelevant, true investigative reporting is not necessary and the television is a sad mirror of our power hungry society.
Toward the end of the President’s speech, the actual verdict was announced. Each network channel said goodbye to the leader of our nation to see the decision of the jury live, as well as the aftermath which captured the tragic yet triumphant reactions of the Goldman family and followed O.J. to Baskin-Robbins.
I still believe in the power of the press, but I do not trust the motivations behind what we see on mainstream television or even what we read in newspapers. I still love journalism, but I abhor the transformation so obviously taking place in the field.
Mr. Oswalt does not teach journalism anymore. The last time I saw him he said something about his heart just not being in it. We both agreed long ago that O.J. Simpson is guilty, but only now do I realize that O.J. is also responsible for so much more.
Raechel Fittante, a junior journalism major, is editor in chief of the Campus Times. She can be reached by e-mail at fittante@ulvacs.ulaverne.edu.
