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And rounding out the week--football. All three networks assigned a correspondent to cover both coach Bill Belichick and Hall of Famer OJ Simpson.
The Juice got in a rhubarb at the Palace Station casino in Las Vegas over sports memorabilia. "There is no dispute there was a dust-up in a hotel room," reported CBS' Bill Whitaker. "What is disputed is whether OJ and his friends broke in with a gun." NBC's George Lewis repeated Simpson's version that he was conducting "a sting operation to recover souvenirs stolen from him." ABC's Brian Rooney (subscription required) speculated that the memorabilia may not have belonged to Simpson because of the $33m verdict against him for the wrongful death of his ex-wife and her waiter friend: "Even his Heisman Trophy was auctioned. Money from anything he sells goes to pay the judgment." The headlines coincided with the publication of his fantasy book If I Did It in which he imagines how he might have perpetrated the murders for which he was acquitted. Income from that, too, goes to pay the judgment. NBC's Lewis suggested "sales will probably by helped."
Belichick was punished by the National Football league for cheating. The so-called "evil genius" of the New England Patriots "had been warned but still broke the rule," noted NBC's Mike Taibbi. His assistant was caught videotaping signals sent in from the sidelines by an opposing coach. Belichick's Patriots have won three Super Bowl championships in the past six years, "a dynasty," ABC's John Berman called them. "Now many are wondering if it is a dynasty built on deceit." Doom and gloom was the theme at CBS, too: "A harsh shadow has been cast on the league's model franchise and the image of its iconic coach," intoned Armen Keteyian (no link). We know that fans take their football very seriously--but $500,000 seems a super stiff fine for some surreptitious videotape.
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