Jackie O. and O.J.

Their stories transfixed the nation and further  fixed in the public mind the idea that newspeople are scum.

I was among the newspeople covering the death of Jacqueline Onassis and the arrest of O.J. Simpson, events that earned the news media failing grades for conduct.  Each attracted huge numbers of newspeople, each one batting for the best camera angle, the best sound bite.

Photographers become crazed, reporters lose any sense of civility.  Passerby are amused, then revulsed.  It is ugly, full-contact journalism and if you come away with great video or super sound, it can be exhilarating.

WSVN photographer Brad Bogott and I were part of this.  We went to cover the news and along the way become part of the story of media brutshness.

In the days before and after her death, a media stakeout at Onassis’ Fifth Avenue apartment in New York required police barricades.  As they tried to enter or leave, the dying woman’s visitors were chased down by photographers at full gallop.

Simpsons home was besieged by high-tech troops whose live-shot vans and satellite trucks clogged the leafy streets of exclusive Brentwood.  Limousines bearing Simpson’s family were nearly immobilized by the boa-like media crush.

At both stakeouts, any person who so much as broke into a purposeful trot would rouse the entire beast into a sweating, swearing, confused stampede.  "Who’s comin’ out?!"  "Get outta my shot!"  "Look out for that cable!"

The stampede trampled flower beds along with good taste.  And when it ended, all of its members would return to their stakeout positions while comparing notes and quotes and trying to reckon who got the best angle, the best sound.

During the long lulls at the Jackie O. and O.J. stakeouts, some newspeople smoked and joked and told war stories.  The beast’s droppings – Styrofoam cups, burger wrappers, pizza boxes—accumulated.

The neighbors were scandalized.

Outside Jackie O.’s, the Upper East Side gentry—dog-walking embodiments of New Yorker drawings—sniffed and scoulded.  "Leave her in peace."  "Give them some privacy."  "Vultures!"  "Ghouls!"

At O.J.’s liberal Hollywoodies began rethinking their devotion to the First Amendment.  A man in a white Jag yelled to me as I prepared to go on camera, "Go home!"  A yuppie in a black Benz: "Get a real job!"

Drive-by shoutings.

And how do you think I felt?

To a very limited, perverse extent, pretty good.  I didn’t much mind inconveniencing a bunch of rich snobs.  I figure if you can’t be an anarchist at least you can play your tripod on a wealthy man’s lawn.

To a much greater extent, being part of a media feeding frenzy made me feel pretty rotten.  After pursing mourners leaving Nicole Simpson’s funeral, photographer Bogott and I agreed this kind of work sometimes makes you feel you need a shower.

But I felt trapped in a situation I can’t control.

This may not be a real job as the jerk in the Benz jibed, bit it’s the only one I know and it’s a pretty fascinating one.  If doing what I love, covering major news events, means getting my fingernails dirty competing with the rest of the newsboys and newsgirls, so be it.

Problem is, there are so many more boys and girls playing in the news game these days.  Case in point:  As I crouched under Brad Bogett’s camera lens outside St. Martin of Tours Church, waiting for O.J. to arrive at the funeral of his ex-wife and alleged victim, I noticed that the crew next to us was from Hard Copy.

I figure Hard Copy had at least two crews at the church; ditto Inside Edition and A Current Affair, syndicated ‘zines that didn’t exists a few years ago.  E! was there, probably ESPN, too.  Hell, for all I knew Nickelodeon was in the pack somewhere, jockeying for position.  All of this relatively new media joined the already giant gaggle of traditional TV, radio, newspaper, wire-service, magazine and free-lance newspeople.

There are more Betacams and Nikons and shotgun mikes and lights than ever.  At a celebrity event—and how much more celeb can you get than Jack O.  and O.J.? -- we’re all paparazzi.

The scene itself sometimes becomes newsworthy, especially when there’s not much new to report on the event all the newspeople have gathered for.

Several times during the Jackie O./O.J. stories, photographer Bogott and I stepped back several yards to show our viewer the story on the fringe of the story: the photographers perched in trees and hanging over hedges, the engulfed limos.

Brad rolled great video of radio talk-show host, head-phones on ears, mike in hand, performing a bombastic, on-the-scene, play-by-play denunciation of the media mob.  The shot started with a close-up of the talkmaster’s mouth and wound up looking over his shoulder at the media frenzy being described.

Does this media madness have to exist?  Do newspeople have to behave this way?

Before we talk about journalistic ethics and public taste, let’s talk about cops.  The police are responsible for keeping areas passable and safe.  The can and should maintain some order at media-intensive events without stifling press freedom.

I give high marks to all the New York police, poor marks to the Los Angeles police.

The NYPD kept Fifth Avenue and its sidewalks open by asking newspeople to remain in a corral of wooden sawhorses.  It was understood we could leave the pigpen to give chase but that we would return immediately thereafter.  The system kept an appalling situation from becoming much worse.

By contrast, the LAPD all but ignored the O.J. stakeout for a couple of days.  One, perhaps two, black-and-white cruisers would occasionally appear.  And then, late on the afternoon of the third day, the cops moved in like Panzers.  They came on motorcycles and in patrol cars and tow trucks.  Parking citations were summarily issued, satellite trucks were ordered off the residential streets—NOW!

At least one newsperson thought yes, these are the wonderful people who brought you Rodney King.

Now on to journalistic ethics and public taste.  Neither is an oxymoron but sometimes you have to wonder.

In an ideal world, the man who signs my paycheck told Newsweek, everyone might watch MacNeil-Lehrer.  But in this less-than-ideal world, people often prefer news that is more lowbrow and less highfalutin’.

If you’re the popular press, you’re obliged to service the popular taste.  And at my level, the trench level, that means making sure your story is as tasty as the next guy’s.  And that means getting the pictures and sound the viewers expect, pictures like Jackie O.’s visitors and O.J.’s funeral appearance.

(No one at journalism school taught me how to cover this kind of news.  Some tips:  (1) Don’t chase a walking target from behind; you’ll get a face shot only by running ahead to get a new position along his path.  (2)  Competing news crews are most vulnerable while backpedaling;  sometimes the most experienced photographers can be elbowed aside while walking backward.  (3)  Make sure you can find your partner if you’re separated, which happens more often in these days of wireless microphones; because Brad wore a Marlins cap in New York and L.A., I was able to spot him quickly amid the horde.)

Sure, news can be gathered in a more gentlemanly manner, but not every event is a presidential news conference.  And who will be the first sap to show up and say, "I refuse to stoop to these tactics.  Join me, fellow journalists, in making a stand for tasteful news coverage?)

Face it.  The public wants it.  We deliver it.

Rail against this sort of newsgathering and you might as well bellow into the gale.