IF court shows are so hot these days, why is the Clinton impeachment trial such a dud?
“This is not ‘L.A. Law,’ this is not ‘Judge Judy’,” Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) keenly observed in a TV interview last week.
Right you are, senator. If it were “Judge Judy,” people would be a lot more interested. The televised trial of O.J.Simpson – a beloved sports hero accused of the brutal murder of his beautiful blonde wife – lured viewers away from the daytime soaps and talk shows. But those shows aren’t suffering at all in competition with the Clinton trial.
To the public, the impeachment proceedings are boring, predictable and monotonous. Apathy is so widespread that Jay Leno jokes about it almost every night on “The Tonight Show,” Howard Stern yawns audibly when someone mentions the trial on his radio show, and “Politically Incorrect” host Bill Maher gets testy when a panelist brings it up.
If it weren’t for the possibility that viewers may get to see and hear Monica Lewinsky describe her relationship with the president some time during the trial’s last days, “this thing would be as flat as old beer,” says Court TV anchor and managing editor Fred Graham. “If they can Monica Lewinsky [on TV], then everyone in the world is going to be watching.”
That would give a much-needed shot in the arm to a televised trial in which the only so-called “action” consists of a clerk intoning the alphabetical names of the senators for roll-call votes on resolutions whose outcomes are never in doubt – the Republicans always get their way.
“We know the verdict before the votes have even been cast, we know how the jury is going to go,” concedes Fox News Channel correspondent David Shuster, citing an utter lack of suspense for creating viewer apathy.
Shuster, Graham and others covering the Clinton scandal describe the impeachment trial with words like “historic,” “monumental,” “amazing,” “incredibly important,” “gigantic,” and “the mother of all news stories.”
But for all its historic significance, the trial isn’t exactly must-see TV. It progresses at a snail’s pace. The image viewers see most often is majority leader Trent Lott standing in the well of the Senate introducing various resolutions as the chief justice sits unmoving behind him. When representatives of each side present their arguments, there’s no debating, just monotonous recitals. And then the public is forced to miss the best stuff – the presumably rancorous debates on key issues that take place behind closed doors.
The potential for boredom hasn’t stopped the all-news cable channels – CNN, MSNBC, Fox News Channel and Court TV – from devoting hours and hours to the story. Their ratings are up on trial days, at least among the news junkies who habitually watch them, although surveys say the vast majority of Americans aren’t watching. The Nielsens have the people who have been covering the story for the past year convinced that comedian-pundits like Jay and Howard are wrong.
“I feel people are paying attention because our viewership is way up,” says CNN Washington bureau chief Frank Sesno, who anchors the network’s coverage on weekday afternoons. “For us and … for people who care, our objective is to give the very best coverage on something we know is important to those who are interested, and in our world it’s twice the size of our normal audience.”
As the trial resumes this week, the end is actually in sight. The whole thing could be wrapped up on Feb.12, a week from Friday.
If Monica’s deposition is televised, it would be a high point to look forward to in the otherwise drab Senate proceedings, although few believe her testimony will be powerful enough to alter the trial’s probable outcome.
