Word: simpson
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...Simpson's talent agency, International Creative Management, has dropped him as a client; publishers are reportedly balking at making a deal for his second book; and it is hard to imagine any network or film studio alienating a large chunk of its audience by putting Simpson in a TV series or movie. "In the eyes of many people he's still a murder suspect," says Joel Segal, an executive vice president at McCann-Erickson advertising. "Why should advertisers associate themselves with that kind of problem when they don't have to?" Offers a top movie agent: "I don't have...
...Simpson picked NBC, his old employer, as the venue for his first interview largely at the urging of entertainment president Don Ohlmeyer, a friend of Simpson's who had visited him regularly in jail. NBC News president Andrew Lack worked out ground rules for the interview with Simpson--no questions were to be off limits--and picked Couric and Brokaw to do the questioning. One passed-over aspirant for the plum assignment, Bryant Gumbel (Couric's Today co-anchor and another friend of Simpson's), took the rejection hard; he didn't show up at work the rest...
...placed under almost impossible scrutiny. "It was going to be really hard to strike the right balance," says Couric. "To be challenging and do follow-ups, but not be too prosecutorial." One strategic decision made early on: the interviewee would be referred to on the air as Mr. Simpson...
...Brokaw and Couric didn't get to refer to him as anything. Though Simpson, according to insiders, desperately wanted to do the interview, virtually his entire legal team advised against it: his comments, they pointed out, could come back to haunt him if they contradicted statements he had made earlier in the criminal investigation. In a statement read by attorney Johnnie Cochran, Simpson complained that NBC was turning the interview into a "confrontation" and looking for "an opportunity to retry the case...
...Simpson's impromptu talk with the Times also raised journalistic questions. Using the element of surprise--he phoned Times TV reporter Bill Carter without warning--and refusing to answer any questions about the murder, Simpson effectively set the agenda and got the unchallenged forum he wanted. Still, the Times could hardly be faulted for printing the results of Simpson's first extended interview, however limited...