> Lisa de Moraes, Washington Post: The cable nets were great at “filling the time:” “They prattled on about how, if convicted, Jackson would go into a holding cell in the courthouse and then be led out the back, would be driven to the Santa Barbara County Jail at high speed, surrounded by police officers; handcuffs would be involved; and how authorities would not take any chance that he might flee or kill himself.” She says the verdict was “a big disappointment” for the cablers.
> Neal Justin, Minneapolis Star-Tribune: “I might as well have been watching ESPN. You could practically hear the anchors salivating into their mikes, hoping for guilty verdicts.”
> Heather Havrilesky, Salon: After the verdict, “the assembled commentators, of course, immediately went into know-it-all mode, casting the acquittal as an obvious outcome for the case.”
> Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: “It isn’t often you hear ABC’s Charlie Gibson talk about a famous person masturbating, and it’s almost never that you’d want to, but if your set was on Monday you heard it then.”
> Mike McDaniel, Houston Chronicle: “Nancy Grace, you have my attention. If I happen to have yours, please label yourself clearly and frequently as a commentator or host, not an anchor or a newsperson…There’s a grace in handling stories of this import and gravity, and Grace was lacking it.”
Many more links, AFTER THE JUMP…
> Aaron Barnhart, Kansas City Star: “Meanwhile on Fox, the top-rated news channel showed why it rules the chicken coop: Its cameras never left the raucous scene outside, and a cacophony of voices – the courtroom clerk, the mad crowd, half a dozen Fox correspondents – filled all available air and space. And yet, the amped-up approach seemed oddly appropriate: totally out of whack, like our news priorities.”
> Editorial, Star-Ledger: “This was news, but it was also entertainment — a surreal scene often described by commentators and anchors as a sideshow or a circus.”
> Chase Squires, St. Petersburg Times: “It couldn’t have played out better for TV, and news outlets let it flow naturally. With a verdict TV analysts agreed was too tough to call, the case generated its own tension.”
> Tim Cuprisin, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: “The helicopter shots of Michael Jackson’s motorcade heading to the courtroom for his verdict brought to mind the images of O.J. Simpson’s white Bronco 11 years ago in the story that created the model for obsessive TV news coverage of stories that are far more interesting than they are important.”
> Matea Gold, Los Angeles Times: “In the fiercely competitive world of television news, there were just a few exclusives. Court TV snagged a sit-down interview with prosecutor Tom Sneddon, and CNN’s Larry King spoke with jury foreman Paul Rodriguez.”
> Peter Johnson, USA Today: “If there were media losers in this case, they were a handful of outspoken Jackson observers who were perceived, rightly or wrongly, to have aligned themselves with prosecutor Thomas Sneddon and his team against Jackson: Court TV and Headline News anchor Nancy Grace, Court TV anchor Diane Dimond and Vanity Fair writer Maureen Orth.”