O.J. sacked!

I digress, quite a bit actually, from my inquiry into whether press freedom in this country is under assault by this government, to discuss this brouhaha which erstwhile football idol, and now pariah-for-life, O.J. Simpson got himself into.

It appears the financially strapped Simpson was persuaded to earn a few bucks by writing a book "If I Did It, Here’s How It Happened." This was supposed to be a hypothetical tome where O.J. would relate how he – IF he was indeed guilty of murdering his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and wrong-place, wrong-time, part-time model, actor and waiter Ron Goldman – would have done it.

That was the intent. But now it’s been announced that none of us is ever going to read that book, assuming we would go so low as to read anything O.J. wrote about that incident, unless it’s a full confession, which it most assuredly is not.

Further, none of us is ever going to watch, on cable TV or via purloined international satellite signal, that two-part interview on Fox Broadcasting, featuring O.J. answering questions about the book, assuming one was inclined to waste time watching this extremely cynical exercise in reality TV.

The reason is that News Corp., the parent company of Fox, as well as of the publishing company that foolishly thought it had another best-seller in its stable, has cancelled both the book and the TV special.

The decision of News Corp., owned by maverick media czar Rupert Murdoch, was triggered by nationwide protests and organized boycotts. Advance orders for the book plummeted to virtually nothing, and at least a dozen of Fox’s local affiliates chose not to carry the two-part broadcast.

Impassioned and angry interviews with the still-grieving Brown and Goldman families were also carried on rival US networks and cable outlets, all of whom saw the storm of controversy as a rare opportunity to openly trash Fox.

In a bizarre twist which arguably proves that freedoms of speech and of the press are alive and well in America – as if regular internet browsers and bloggers needed any more proof – among the most vocal protests to the latest O.J. caper were those from Fox Broadcasting’s own news affiliate, Fox News. Its surly anchors spent hours blasting O.J. to smithereens.

Well, it worked! Lawyers for the Brown and Goldman families, who won civil verdicts amounting to over $30 million but have not collected a solitary red cent, gave fair warning that they would hold Fox, publisher Judith Regan (for Harper Collins) and O.J. himself fully accountable for all monies earned by the sordid venture.

O.J.’s book and TV contract reportedly stipulated that all monies would be paid to a trust fund purposely set up to take care of the education of his two children with the late Nicole Brown. However, the lawyers said that they would follow the money trail like famished bloodhounds and seize all the monies they could get their hands on.

There is still argument over how much, if any, money O.J. has already collected by way of advances and to whose accounts payments were made. Rumors put such advances at as much as $3.5 million.

O.J.’s premise was pretty cynical to begin with. He thought he might as well make some money, since most Americans had made up their minds that he was guilty, despite the California jury’s not-guilty verdict. O.J. made it very clear that the book was not going to be a confession. This was apparently going to read like fiction, so he could freely speculate about some unsolved mysteries that have enveloped the case.

But although the book won’t make it to bookstores, some fear that unauthorized editions may find their way into the black market, into E-Bay or some guerilla website. The controversy has predictably heightened interest in the book, among the incurably curious as well as free speech die-hards.

Civil libertarians insist that anyone should be free to pander his garbage, and the people that want to read it should be free to do so. That, in their view, is what democracy and the free market of ideas are all about. Even patent absurdity has a place in that marketplace, since today’s absurdity can be tomorrow’s wisdom.

Moreover, many have made money from this "case of the century." Over the last 12 years, bookstores have been littered with books of varying readability and credibility from such authors as former Los Angeles detective Mark Furman, prosecutors Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden, several defense counsel and supposed forensic experts. America, it seems, is one place where convicted killers and sundry criminals still manage to get rich behind bars or from death row.

The contrary view is that the public interest is not served by criminals who make money by exploiting morbid interest in their heinous acts. After having been found civilly liable for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, O.J. Simpson has allegedly spent over a decade thinking of every possible scheme to avoid payment of financial damages to which the bereaved families are entitled.

He justifies the book and TV special by asserting his innocence and pleading that his children with Nicole need funds for their sustenance (in the style, naturally, to which they have become accustomed) and education. O.J. claims he’s sold most of the assets he gathered in a long career as pro football running back, actor and advertising pitchman, in desperate efforts to raise money. He still has debts up to his gills, he laments.

Those pleas have fallen on deaf ears, in the face of public and media perception that he got away with murders he "clearly" committed. For instance, the slant of that Geraldo Rivera special on Fox News this past weekend, was obvious. The program was a strident and unabashed argument for O.J.’s guilt, the incompetence of the LA cops who investigated the crime scene, the courage and persistence of then detective Mark Furman, and the intransigence of the "inner-city" jury which was bent on freeing sports icon O.J.

Still, the book and TV special were bad ideas, borne either out of sheer desperation or arrogant cynicism that America may now be willing to forgive and forget. How wrong can one be!

Everyone associated with this fiasco is now running for cover. The truth is The Juice is bad news. Barring a miracle, like the discovery of the real killer, he’ll probably be bad news for the rest of his life.

Some things can never be put to rest. Sometimes, there is simply no closure.