THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 31, 1994 TAG: 9412310325
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
LENGTH: Long : 123 lines
The O.J. Simpson case was the top news story of 1994 in the annual Associated Press survey of news executives.
No. 2, said 357 newspaper and broadcast executives, was the GOP sweep in the fall elections.
The labor disputes that struck out baseball, and then shut out hockey, were ranked the third biggest story of the year.
From the top:
1. O.J. SIMPSON: Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman lie slashed to death outside a Los Angeles condo, her ex-husband on the lam. That story from the June 13 police log sounds intriguing. It proved irresistible when the ex-husband turned out to be O.J. Simpson. Add the race angle (Simpson is black, the victims white); the domestic violence angle; the ``bizarre'' angle, millions of TV viewers watching police chase Simpson in a Ford Bronco; the can't-touch-me angle; and Simpson's cry of innocence behind his wall of lawyers.
Savage, tragic and awful, the story invites comparisons to Shakespeare's ``Othello'' and soap opera.
2. GOP SWEEP: Some say it's only a phase, our native fickleness. See if it lasts past '96, they say. Others behold a voters' revolt intended to reverse the New Deal-born philosophy of government as protector and provider. Whatever it was, the political earthquake struck Nov. 8, when Republicans won control of both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years. It was a rebuke to Democrats, Bill Clinton, liberalism, Washington and government as usual. At the state level, where Democrats had long prevailed, Republicans took up residence in 30 governor's mansions. GOP lawmakers also now control more legislatures than they have since the late 1960s.
And if Virginians didn't send Oliver North to the U.S. Senate, and if Michael Huffington's $27 million couldn't buy a Senate seat from California, and if Mario Cuomo, erstwhile potential president and Supreme Court justice, was deposed by an unknown upstater, the election did create a fascinating national figure in Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., who as House speaker will be two heartbeats from the presidency.
3. NO BASEBALL, HOCKEY: Spring got started, if nervously. Summer dragged hot and restless. Then on Aug. 11, baseball players went on strike, the world fell out of synch and this became the year they called the whole thing off. Unable to say it ain't so, acting baseball commissioner Bud Selig on Sept. 14 canceled the season and the World Series, the first time since 1904. Money (what else?) was the issue: When team owners pleaded that they needed to cut costs and cap salaries, players refused to play. The cost to fans? Discovering once again that baseball is just a business.
Hockey, too, it turns out. The season, set to start Oct. 1, was suspended, also because of efforts to limit salaries.
4. MOTHER KILLS SONS: In the dark of Oct. 25, Susan Smith, a 23-year-old secretary in Union, S.C., buckled her two little boys in their car seats, drove to a lake and sent them down a boat ramp to their deaths. Then, for nine days, she claimed a black carjacker had stolen her babies, and she pleaded for the safe return of Michael, 3, and Alex, 14 months old. Volunteers scoured the countryside. A nation poured out sympathy and prayers. When at last she confessed, the sympathy turned to venom.
5. ICE SKATING PLOT: Often what makes one news story more memorable than most is its resemblance to fiction. So it was when Olympic skater Nancy Kerrigan got clobbered above the right knee at a Detroit rink Jan. 6, the target of a scheme by rival Tonya Harding's ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, and a would-be bodyguard. In this parable, the beautiful and brave Kerrigan was contrasted with the plain, scrappy and insecure Harding, who blamed her troubles on her ex-husband and his associates and even an untied skate-lace. In the end, Kerrigan won a silver medal while Harding was frozen out of skating circles in disgrace.
6. RESTORING ARISTIDE: For three years, the brutal army of Gen. Raoul Cedras stole democracy from the people of Haiti after ousting their elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. A frustrated world tried many penalties before resorting to a nearly total trade embargo. Still, Cedras wouldn't budge.
Then in September, with scant political support, President Clinton threatened to send troops. But at the last moment, he sent former President Jimmy Carter, Sen. Sam Nunn, and retired Gen. Colin Powell, who at last cajoled Cedras and his cronies into a deal. On Oct. 15, with the support of 20,000 U.S. troops, Aristide returned in peace to build a country.
7. HEALTH REFORM STALLED: The chronic complaint that nearly 40 million Americans lacked health insurance was scheduled for the cure this year. That was on the agenda, at least, for Bill Clinton, whose vow to overhaul the health system glittered in his 1992 bid for the White House. His wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and a legion of helpers took on the task.
Doctors, insurers, and businesses small and large found their proposal too much to swallow. The public soon threw up its hands, Democrats threw in the towel and when Congress disbanded, nearly 40 million Americans still had no health insurance, with no relief in sight.
8. CALIFORNIA EARTHQUAKE: The 6.7 shaker that awakened Southern Californians at 4:31 a.m. Jan. 17 was more shocking and shattering than most in that quaking state. The reason: The earthquake's epicenter was suburban Northridge, just 25 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Many among the 61 people who died were crushed under collapsed buildings or trapped in burning homes.
Felt as far as Las Vegas and San Diego, the quake also brought down seven freeway bridges, paralyzing a region that drives to live, and vice versa. With property losses a whopping $20 billion, suburbia has become a ghost town with boarded-up homes and apartments. Freeways reopened, but Southern California continues to struggle to recover its sunny self.
9. BLOODSHED IN RWANDA: Only a day after the still-unexplained plane crash April 6 that killed the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, civil war erupted in Rwanda. The ensuing bloodbath left more than half a million people dead. Then, when more than 2 million people ran from the rebel army that seized power in July, cholera consumed those who fled.
A horrified world scrambled for maps to locate the tiny, lush country of farms in Central Africa and tried to keep straight who was after whom, Hutu or Tutsi. More baffling was the human butchery that for a time paralyzed would-be rescuers, who were scared to enter that place of death and madness.
10. PALESTINIAN HOMELAND: PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat's arrival on Palestinian soil July 1 to run the Gaza Strip and Jericho marked many turning points. For Arafat, it was an end to 27 years in exile and the start of his job transforming the Palestine Liberation Organization from an army of guerrillas into a civil bureaucracy. For Israel, Arafat's presence and new role meant relinquishing control after three decades. For Palestinians who waged the seven-year uprising, it was seen as a step toward an independent state. MEMO: Top news stories chosen by Virginian-Pilot readers on page A1.
KEYWORDS: 1994 by CNB