The Press : Interest in Simpson Case Diminishes With Distance

The O.J. Simpson murder trial is a national obsession in the United States. Television covers every courtroom move, newspaper reporters blanket developments, tabloids go around the bend, and editorial cartoonists skewer the players.

Beyond the frontier, however, fascination with the trial diminishes with distance. Canadian and Latin American cartoonists take regular swats at the circus atmosphere around the Los Angeles courtroom. But the European entries are fewer, although a Vienna cartoonist had his American images sufficiently together to portray the American TV coverage as a media Super Bowl.

Most foreign cartoonists appeared struck more by the coverage of the trial than the process itself. For instance, the Victoria, Canada, artist whose last frame showed a television set sailing out a window. Or the London satirist who portrayed the United States itself as a television set, with Simpson’s countenance staring out from the tube.

The trial, now under way and expected to continue for months, has become a showcase of U.S. culture to the foreign audience. Later press comment may reveal its impact as an example of American justice.