The people have spoken and the News Corporation (NWS-A) has listened to the intense pressure from not only outside the company but inside as well, and pulled their plans to publish a book and broadcast an interview with O.J. Simpson, in which he details how he might have murdered his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald L. Goldman.
For the past week intense criticism from the public, advertisers and sponsors and even television hosts like Bill O'Reilly on the Fox News Channel, which like Fox is owned by the News Corporation, were vocal in their opposition to the telecast and book publishing.
Bookstores around the nation said they wouldn't carry the book while large national bookstore chains said they would donate any profits to charities that benefited the victims of domestic violence.
Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the News Corporation, was quoted in this NYTimes.com article as saying, “I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project. We are sorry for any pain this has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson.”
They had banked upon the idea that because it had been 11 years from the time of the crime that the public wouldn't consider him such a pariah but they gravely miscalculated the public's tolerance for anything to do with Mr. Simpson.
The NYTimes article goes on to say that any projects involving Mr. Simpson have met with public outrage in the 11 years since he was acquitted in a media-saturated murder trial. He was later found responsible for the deaths in a civil trial and ordered to pay $33.5 million in restitution to the victims’ families.
Mr. Simpson, a former football star and actor, moved from Los Angeles to Florida partly to protect his assets from that civil judgment. He has only occasionally appeared in public in recent years and has never stopped declaring himself innocent of the murder charges. A Florida lawyer representing Mr. Simpson could not be reached for comment yesterday.
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