Why are they chasing O.J.?

[Jokerman]

It was on this date twenty years ago that Traci and I left the mountain cabin where we’d spent the previous five nights, drove across Tennessee and checked into a hotel. I was still a TV news junkie at the time and while Traci took a shower I turned on a TV for the first time in nearly a week.

Boy was I confused. I had jumped right into the middle of the now famous slow-speed-chase. Every channel had live coverage of the same white Bronco being followed by the police. Of course they assumed their viewers knew about the murders and subsequent investigation so there was no background info for those of us who tuned in late, just the same, slow-moving Bronco. It took me several minutes to even figure out who was driving.

Traci finished her shower and found me staring intently into the screen still trying to figure out what the hell I was watching. “What’s this,” she asked. “Damned if I know, but it’s on EVERY channel.” As she sat down I told her, “I think that’s O.J. Simpson in the Bronco that the cops are chasing.” She looked puzzled, “Why are they chasing O.J.?”

In the year following that event I began to long for those days when I knew little about O.J. Simpson and rarely heard his name. I made a vow that I would turn off any TV news program as soon as the daily O.J. update began. As the “trial of the century” progressed from the fourth or fifth story of the day to the first or second story in every newscast I found myself completely cured of my TV news habit. Over the last twenty years I doubt that I have watched as many hours of TV news as they spent covering one month of O.J.’s trial.

For me at least, that was a defining moment for TV news. Broadcast journalism was officially dead and tabloid TV became the only game in town.

[LibDemAlways]

1. What is truly baffling is the need to rehash it as though

it was some huge moment in American history instead of a sad case of an ex-husband murdering his former wife and a friend who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Never worthy of the intense coverage it got back then and certainly not worthy of any more airtime being devoted to it now.

[Jokerman]

2. I keeps them from covering real news.

I guess I should have know they'd be kicking that dead horse again. The only thing that my jogged my memory was the entry on Wikipedia's home page.

[Tanuki]

4. They're also shamelessly flogging the Kardashian connection this time around. n/t

[Jokerman]

7. Is that how the Kardashian's became "famous"?

I had no idea. Another thing we can blame on O.J.

[Tanuki]

8. Well, I think the trial was how the dad became famous outside of L.A.,

but I'm no expert on the subject. Papa Kardashian was one of O.J's attorneys and apparently the two families socialized together. Nicole Brown Simpson and Kris Jenner were close friends, but the Kardashian clown show wasn't a "thing" yet. That happened years later when Kim Kardashian launched her career as a celebutante with a "leaked" sex tape, following the lead of Paris Hilton a few years earlier. Or at least that's my impression. They were interviewing Kris Jenner in a CNN feature about the murder and trial a couple of nights ago.

[Jenoch]

6. It kind of did become a big moment

if only because of all the media coverage. I would guess that many people remember exactly where they were when they heard the verdict, I do anyway. I did avoid reading about it and did not watch coverage of the trial.

[JaneyVee]

3. Because it was Barack Obama driving the Bronco

And planning BENGHAZI WITH OJ ALL ALONG!

[LibDemAlways]

5. Surprised FAUX isn't already all over this!