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R E C E N T L Y

"Firing Line" ceases fire
By Susan Lehman
Plus: U.S. News goes on a hiring spree and Brill bashing is on the rise
(01/07/99)

Let the culture war rage
By Steve Erickson
It's time for America to decide what its true values are
(01/06/99)

The world is ending -- let's get to know our neighbors!
By James Poniewozik
As Y2K approaches, the Utne Reader advocates the book group to end all book groups
(01/05/99)

Out's liquid lunch, Lolita vs. Humbert and other marvels of media madness
By Susan Lehman
(12/24/98)

Mementos from the pre-millennium
By Steve Erickson
Dredging the 1998 archives of art, pop culture and politics reveals a private cultural canon
(12/23/98)

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----------The century of the trial

 
BY JAMES PONIEWOZIK | Sadly for the networks, the beginning of the Senate impeachment proceedings Thursday looked less like a judicial proceeding than an Elks Lodge initiation -- lizardy Strom Thurmond and William Rehnquist tottering above the chamber like the evil birdmen in "The Dark Crystal," 100 senators signing the register and walking off with their commemorative styluses ("We paralyzed three branches of government and all I got was this lousy pen!") and more liver-spotted white men walking down corridors than during Senior Fitness Week at a Florida mall. At last NBC, realizing what a snoozer it was stuck with, cut smartly away to "Days of Our Lives," which was smack in the middle of a courtroom interrogation scene.

Finally! A real trial! No closed-door sessions, no cloture votes, just brutal cross-examination, murder and twins! Within 30 seconds, to the relief of the impeachment-tranquilized audience, the prosecutor picked apart the alibi a witness gave for his sister ("twin telepathy," indeed!), called a shocking surprise witness and brought us to a commercial break.

In one little segue NBC captured the expectations gap in televised law today: The networks and cable have so primed their audiences with live murder trials, syndicated court-coms and legal-analysis shouting matches that they were left sweating to make the actual Senate trial of the president of the United States seem exciting. Fifty spots were available to the public at the trial's opening -- that's one seat for, say, the population of Maryland -- and barely 50 takers showed up Thursday morning. By Friday morning, Court TV had deferred the impeachment in favor of the retrial of Victor Brancaccio, "the Zoloft murderer."

That left TV news pulling out the rhetorical stops, reminding us of the time ("At the end of the 20th century") and the president's name ("William Jefferson Clinton stands trial"). Bernard Shaw, Cokie Roberts, et al. murmured about how "real" the process became once Rehnquist donned that goofy spaceman robe and the senators took the oath. And I'm sure, sensitive dears, that they really felt it, but they may be the only ones in the country who did. See, there really is a "cynicism gap" between the public and the Washington press corps. The press isn't cynical enough. They're the only Americans capable of this kind of embarrassing, greenhorn civic wonder anymore.

But while the proceedings themselves may be ratings death, they're welcome in the burgeoning field of TV law. We Americans, after all, don't care much for deliberation. We weasel out of jury duty, we resent jurors who award multimillion-dollar settlements. But damn, do we love judgment! We want somebody to make a freaking decision! We want somebody to rule our enemies out of order! And today's legal programming gives us judges aplenty. Much critical notice has recently gone to the high-octane Solomaniacs who fill the daytime schedules -- the hectoring Judge Judy, the mugging Ed Koch, the excitable Mills Lane -- but the heart of the cable docket remains the legal analysts who with the Senate trial received their biggest boost since 1995.

N E X T_ P A G E | The gift of O.J.

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