Table of Contents

Introduction
Murder in Los Angeles
Bundy and Rockingham
The Chase
Frenzy in L.A.
The Greatest Story Ever
Metamorphosis
The Race Card
Judge Ito and the Media
The Great Camera Debate
Media Wars
The Trial of O. J. Simpson
Firestorm
Exposed
House of Mirrors
The Journalists
The Fuhrman Trial
The Black and White Press
Closing Curtain
Judgment Day
Aftermath
Prologue
Index

Promotional Information

This is not just another O.J. book but a sharp analysis of the case that prods us to a greater awareness of the interplay of forces affecting our understanding of daily events. Library Journal

About the Author

PAUL THALER is Director of Journalism and Media at Mercy College. A former newspaper reporter and freelance writer for The New York Times and Forbes MediaCritic, Thaler has been a noted media expert for many national publications and network programs. He is author of The Watchful Eye: American Justice in the Age of the Television Trial (Praeger, 1994).

Reviews

?[T]haler does help the reader make sense of one of the decade's most dramatic tragedies.?-Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

?From the moment the nation stopped and watched the white Bronco crawling down a California freeway to the reading of the verdict and its far-reaching aftermath, America was held captive by this story. With welcome objectivity, Thaler tells how it all happened. This is not just another O.J. book but a sharp analysis of the case that prods us to a greater awareness of the interplay of forces affecting our understanding of daily events.?-Library Journal

?Readers will find interesting criticisms of mass media and delightful factoids about "The People of the State of California versus Orenthal James Simpson" in this book....Thaler decisively contributes to our understanding of "media logic" at the end of the millennium....This book (is) most rewarding as a tour of a massive, extended media event and as an expose of an interplay among crime, race, culture, justice, and celebrity in postmodern America.?-The Law and Politics Book Review

?Thaler's book is not simply another turn on this story we have all been overexposed to ad nauseum. It is not about Simpson's guilt or innocence, or about the machinations, personalities, and twisted jurisprudence of the so-called 'trial of the century.' Rather, The Spectacle is a wonderfully written analysis of the most visible and simultaneously invisible players and forces in this epic drama: The mass media.?-New Jersey Journal of Communications

"ÝT¨haler does help the reader make sense of one of the decade's most dramatic tragedies."-Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

"[T]haler does help the reader make sense of one of the decade's most dramatic tragedies."-Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

"From the moment the nation stopped and watched the white Bronco crawling down a California freeway to the reading of the verdict and its far-reaching aftermath, America was held captive by this story. With welcome objectivity, Thaler tells how it all happened. This is not just another O.J. book but a sharp analysis of the case that prods us to a greater awareness of the interplay of forces affecting our understanding of daily events."-Library Journal

"Thaler's book is not simply another turn on this story we have all been overexposed to ad nauseum. It is not about Simpson's guilt or innocence, or about the machinations, personalities, and twisted jurisprudence of the so-called 'trial of the century.' Rather, The Spectacle is a wonderfully written analysis of the most visible and simultaneously invisible players and forces in this epic drama: The mass media."-New Jersey Journal of Communications

"Readers will find interesting criticisms of mass media and delightful factoids about "The People of the State of California versus Orenthal James Simpson" in this book....Thaler decisively contributes to our understanding of "media logic" at the end of the millennium....This book (is) most rewarding as a tour of a massive, extended media event and as an expose of an interplay among crime, race, culture, justice, and celebrity in postmodern America."-The Law and Politics Book Review