Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 11, 1995 TAG: 9510110074
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KNIGHT-RIDDER TRIBUNE
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Thousands of viewers have called NBC and its stations to protest. A women's organization has denounced the network. And ``Today'' show anchor Bryant Gumbel is unhappy because he will not be part of the interview.
The Simpson interview will be conducted by Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric, live and without commercial interruption. It will begin about 9 p.m. EDT and last an hour, as part of a three-hour special edition of ``Dateline NBC.''
Simpson, 48, a former football commentator for NBC, was acquitted last week in the 1994 killings of his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. Simpson did not testify at the trial.
Neither NBC nor Simpson will profit from the event, said NBC News President Andrew Lack. The interview, he said, is a legitimate story that any journalist would pursue.
``We're not in a popularity contest here,'' Lack said. ``We're journalists. We're reporters. There are a lot of people who are going to be offended by anything O.J. Simpson says and any appearance he makes, anywhere.''
Reaction to the interview, announced Monday night, was swift:
NBC network headquarters in New York was deluged by protest calls Tuesday, and affiliates around the country reported unusually high numbers of unhappy callers. Detroit's WDIV received more than 300 calls by midafternoon, including several dozen from viewers who said they would never watch the station again.
Pat Rapp, a Southfield, Mich., woman who has followed the Simpson case, said: ``He's a killer. He's a wife beater. And he did it in front of his children, which makes him a child abuser.''
Some callers said that if he wanted to speak, Simpson should have done so in court when he was under oath and could be cross-examined by prosecutors.
Security will be tight at the network studios in Los Angeles, where the interview will be held.
Women's groups said Simpson, who pleaded no contest to spousal battery in 1989, should not be given a national platform to seek to repair his image. NOW warned of unspecified economic consequences for NBC.
Inside NBC, Gumbel argued that he should participate in the interview because he covered the story extensively for ``Today.'' But Lack, who originally chose Gumbel to ask questions along with Brokaw and Couric, changed his mind after Simpson, during a 20-minute telephone conversation, described Gumbel as a friend.
``O.J. and Bryant have known each other for 20 years. ... The journalistic rules of the road require that you recuse yourself because of that special relationship,'' Lack said.
Meanwhile, the Boston Globe reported that, despite assurances that the interview would have ``no ground rules,'' NBC had, in fact, agreed to certain terms dictated by the former football great. It was Simpson who wanted the hourlong interview aired without commercial interruption, Lack said. Simpson also insisted upon the presence of his lead attorney, Johnnie Cochran Jr., although Cochran is expected to remain off-camera.
by CNB