A good call on O.J.

For once, a television network and a book publisher appear to have made a good, ethical choice. O. J. Simpson, acquitted of the murder of ex-wife Nicole Brown-Simpson and waiter Ron Goldman in criminal court and found liable for the same in a civil court, was to have been featured in an upcoming Fox two-part series which detailed how Simpson would have committed the murders “if he did it.”

A book, entitled, “If I Did It,” was also set to be released. Judith Regan, publisher of “If I Did It,” said she considered the book to be Simpson’s confession.

Many believed that Simpson received the benefit of bumbling police work and an inept prosecution in the trial that found him “not guilty” of the 1995 murders. A firestorm of outrage erupted when plans for the TV interview, to be aired during sweeps week, and the book were announced. Simpson was reported to be in line to receive $3.5 million dollars for the book and interview.

The industry trade publication Broadcasting & Cable editorialized against the show earlier in the week, saying, “Fox should cancel this evil sweeps stunt.” The Fox News Channel, separate from Fox Broadcasting but owned by the same company, also railed against the plans with one respected commentator and university professor calling the book and interview “obscene.”

An America OnLine news release reported, “The television special was to air on two of the final three nights of the November sweeps, when ratings are watched closely to set local advertising rates. It has been a particularly tough fall for Fox, which has seen none of its new shows catch on and is waiting for the January bows of ‘American Idol’ and ‘24.’ The closest precedent for such an about-face came when CBS yanked a miniseries about Ronald Reagan from its schedule in 2003 when complaints were raised about its accuracy. The Reagan series was seen on its sister premium-cable channel, Showtime, instead.

“One station manager who had said he wasn’t airing the special said he was concerned that whether or not Simpson was guilty, he’d still be profiting from murders. ‘I have my own moral compass and this was easy,’ said Bill Lamb, general manager of WDRB in Louisville. For the publishing industry, the cancellation of ‘If I Did It’ was an astonishing end to a story like no other. Numerous books have been withdrawn over the years because of possible plagiarism ... but a book’s removal simply for objectionable content is virtually unheard of. Sales had been strong, but not sensational. ‘If I Did It’ cracked the top 20 of Amazon.com last weekend, but by Monday afternoon, at the time its cancellation had been announced, the book had fallen to No. 51.”

One should not be surprised that Fox and the publisher, Regan Books, assumed that Americans would be eager for such material. After all, programming, such as “Fear Factor” which regularly features people debasing themselves in public for the opportunity to win cash, has drawn a large following.

One such stunt in the program featured men and women transferring live maggots from one container to another. The person who, by weight, transferred the most maggots won the event. The catch is that the maggots were transferred by the contestants plunging their faces into a container of maggots, opening their mouths, and transferring the maggots in their mouths. They were expected to repeat this procedure several times before the clock ran out.

Other programs, such as “The Jerry Springer Show,” regularly feature people at their worst, humiliating and shaming themselves in front of millions of eager viewers who, apparently, lap it right up. Americans seem to be fascinated by the promiscuous lifestyles of the Hollywood crowd, revel in sex tapes of stars who have been stupid enough to allow their intimate moments to be recorded and later used against them, and delight in hearing and seeing the latest dirt that someone has on a star or a public figure.

The television and publishing world is in the business of making money-it usually delivers what it thinks consumers want. The fact that the Simpson book, in pre-publication, was already 51st on the Amazon.com list and the fact that millions of people were eagerly awaiting the Simpson interview to learn how Simpson “might” have committed these brutal murders says even more about Americans than it says about O. J. Simpson.