Of course Michael Jackson's trial on child-molestation charges will be a media circus. You can tell that just by looking at the satellite TV trucks lined up cheek-by-jowl and the spider's web of cable strung by the electronic media around the Lewellen Justice Center, the site of Jackson's trial, in this modest town on California's central coast.
But in the annals of lurid, media-fueled trials, M.J.'s probably won't rank with O.J.'s. It may even turn out to be something less than Scott Peterson's. Unless Jackson intends to moonwalk on the roof of an SUV each day, the restrictions placed on news organizations by Judge Rodney S. Melville seem likely to suppress the media fireworks -- and the public's interest along with them. There's simply going to be a shortage of compelling pictures here, and TV can't survive long without that.
What's more, as the Jackson trial resumed yesterday after a week-long delay, the nature of the case -- allegations by a then-13-year-old boy that Jackson served him alcohol and sexually abused him -- is already making TV producers nervous about what they'll permit their correspondents to say about the proceeding.
At 46, Jackson is by far the most famous person in America, and perhaps the world, who has ever been put on trial on a felony charge (in his case, 10 of them). Though he's past his prime, Jackson's international fame, born of millions in album sales and years of pervasive weirdness, surpasses the renown of every accused miscreant in the past 10 years. That ever-expanding list includes O.J. Simpson, Peterson, record producer Phil Spector, Winona Ryder, Martha Stewart, Robert Blake, comedian Paula Poundstone, Kobe Bryant and Jayson Williams.
As such, the media caravan kicked up a considerable dust cloud as it thundered into Santa Maria. All the American news networks are here, as are major broadcasters from Europe, Asia and Australia. Almost a thousand media passes have been issued by Santa Barbara County superior court (the vast majority, it appears, went to technicians and production people, not correspondents).
Seven seats
The media have only seven reserved seats in the courtroom -- reporters rotate in and out on a set schedule -- so news people by the dozens sit all day on metal folding chairs in a large, wood-paneled trailer near the courtroom. They watch a closed-circuit feed of the trial on a single 36-inch RCA TV set.
Camera positions in front of the courthouse, where Jackson alights from his motorcade each day, are at such a premium that court officials have marked off three-foot-wide parcels on the parking lot, assigning each news crew to its own mini-pad. "Entertainment Tonight" somehow snagged two slots, one-upping "Access Hollywood."
The big boys have gone even further. CNN has built a camera platform next to the Salvation Army soup kitchen across the street from the courthouse. NBC has erected a multistory structure, dubbed "Peacock Tower," on an adjacent ball field. Fox, CBS and Court TV are building another tower of babble nearby. Surveying the setup the other day, Raul Marin, a freelance cameraman who has shot several celebrity trials, observed, "It looks like we're covering the Rose Parade."
In a sense, they are. The daily arrival shot of Jackson's motorcade is vital because it may be the only glimpse of Jackson the TV cameras will get (a pool camera may show him walking through the building's metal detector as well). Unlike O.J. trial judge Lance Ito, Melville has banned cameras from his courtroom. Melville is so camera-shy that he declined to pose for generic (so-called "B-roll") footage of himself walking into the courtroom until media reps petitioned him.
The absence of courtroom cameras means that Jackson's trial won't unfold to viewers like the daily dramatic series that was Simpson's criminal murder case. With no TV, there will be fewer "characters" and personalities around which to build interest. O.J. had a steady stream of them -- Ito, prosecutor Marcia Clark, defense attorney Johnnie Cochran, friend-of-the-defendant Kato Kaelin, rogue cop Mark Fuhrman, etc. Though Jackson's defense said last week that it might call such celebrities as Elizabeth Taylor and Stevie Wonder to the witness stand, the regular players -- his lawyers, the investigators and prosecutors and certainly Jackson's accuser -- aren't likely to become well known to the public.
'Impact fees'
Melville's restrictions are even more draconian than those in the Peterson trial. Correspondents here won't be able to send real-time data from the courtroom or from the adjacent media observation room, as was permitted in Peterson's trial on charges of murdering his wife, Laci, and their unborn child. Melville has banned all electronic communications devices from the two buildings -- no cell phones, no laptops, no BlackBerrys. So if news breaks, reporters have to race from the building to their camera positions outside, with other reporters standing by to run inside to take their place. "It's going to be a tag-team event," said Tim Sullivan, who oversees Court TV's daytime programming.
Behind the scenes of the Jackson legal drama, the news media are waging their own battle. A coalition of media companies, including The Washington Post and the New York Times, has formally objected to "media impact" fees of $7,500 per day that are being levied by Santa Barbara County officials. The county says the fees are necessary to recoup the costs of parking, additional security and the media "overflow" trailer to accommodate the extraordinary news coverage of the trial.
In a letter sent last week to the Santa Barbara County Counsel, media-pool attorney Theodore Boutrous Jr. characterized the fees as excessive and unconstitutional, and asked that they be reduced or eliminated. "We're not asking for a free ride," Boutrous said in an interview, "but none of these costs are related to anything that the media has requested or needs. It's part of the government's function to give the media access to a public trial. Charging the press for access amounts to a tax, and that's a violation of the First Amendment."
County officials have said that without the fees, taxpayers will bear an additional burden in a trial that will likely last more than six months and cost millions of dollars. Besides, the county points out, media representatives agreed last May to pay for some services.
Media fees -- and the controversy surrounding them -- have grown with each new high-profile trial. In Simpson's trial more than a decade ago, Los Angeles officials asked for and received "a reasonable fee" to rent a parking lot across from the criminal court building, said Jennifer Siebens, CBS News's West Coast bureau chief. During Peterson's 10-month trial on double murder charges, San Mateo County collected $75,000 from TV, radio and print outlets . The bill to the media for Jackson's trial already exceeds $82,500, says Boutrous, and could reach more than $1.1 million if the trial runs its expected length.
Revulsion factor
It's not just the issues of media access and the logistics of getting images to broadcast that make Jackson's trial a bit of a bummer for news organizations. Journalists have another big problem: The revulsion factor.
The trial is likely to elicit months and months of graphically detailed testimony about criminal sexual deviancy, not exactly the kind of fodder for Katie and Matt on your typical morning wake-up show. As with Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, reporting on Jackson could be another moment that defines where The Line is in reporting certain uncomfortable details. Some of those details may just be left out altogether.
"Everyone is taking a real wait-and-see on this one because they're afraid of the story," said one network producer, who asked not to be identified because he's not authorized by his employer to speak to the press. "What's the worst [testimony] that you heard in Scott Peterson? That a headless torso washed up on the beach. With Michael Jackson, there are going to be witnesses testifying about masturbation and stains. At which point TV sets are going to be clicking off all across America."
Said CBS's Siebens: "These are very painful allegations. We have to handle it with kid gloves."
Court TV's Sullivan already knows people are squeamish. "If it were not for the celebrity of Michael Jackson, this would not be the kind of story that will cause a lot of talk about all day," he said. "Pedophilia is not a very attractive subject. People don't want to hear about it or talk about it."
Sullivan says his correspondents will shy away from talking about the details of the testimony. They'll talk instead about legal strategy and tactics, such as whom the prosecution or defense might want on the jury, he says. This could make for some rather dull TV, no matter how famous the defendant.
"I used to think this was going to be a really big deal and now I'm not so sure," Siebens said. "I think it's all so distasteful. And he's so over with a capital O. I don't think this is another trial of the century."
True enough, certainly for now. Yesterday, the big news out of Southern California had nothing to do with Michael Jackson. It was about rain and mudslides.