Roman Polanski

This is the first of a three-part series of posts on the media:

1. Media & the Selective Outrage Machine
2. The Culture War Is Not Really Taking Place
3. The Big Hit:: CBC v. The Canadian Cancer Society

While it’s not new that news journalism is a business in financial dire straits and the newspaper already has its death date set in 2043, the pressure to remain relevant has pushed it from infotainment into a neo-Hearstean monster. While William Randolph Hearst would engage in fabrication, known for his quote, “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war”, news these days is about dramaturgy in the narrative in a cynical grab for viewers, subscribers, and pageviews.

Jon Stewart coined the term “selective outrage machine” to characterize Fox’s outrage at the Common-White House controversy. In order to be fair, the same tactics can be seen on MSNBC, as well as on the far right and left of the political spectrum. It’s how the game is played in the attention economy.

I think in our current culture of optics, the other side of the “fail” coin is the blatant attempt to manipulate the news media’s thirst for the dramatic. It’s a Goffman world, ruled by the tenets of The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life.

DSK & Roman Polanski

Watching the Dominique Strauss-Kahn rape allegation was particularly cringeworthy. I thought Cyrus Vance’s {Manhattan District Attorney} mouthing off to the press was setting the stage for disaster. While some were playing the angle, I was thinking of the Duke lacrosse players. Let’s face it, the story as it unfolded was red hot. A rich, powerful champagne socialist with a history of womanizing rapes an asylum-seeking Islamic immigrant  housekeeper at in his pricey suite at the Sofitel. It was one of those divisive stories where even being neutral was deemed as tacit complicity in violence against women. The media frenzy created an indefensible whipping boy in DSK, which, to me, seemed premature given that the facts surrounding the case left some ambiguity with respect to its supposed airtight nature. The case started to unravel, with allegations that the accuser lied and had inconsistent stories, along with supposed assertions by the NY Post that the victim was part of a prostitution ring.

Salon.com has annoyed me over the years by actively creating an adversarial mosh pit, where feminism is positioned in ways to extract maximum ire. I would argue that Kate Harding’s 2009 piece on Roman Polanski, reminding readers that the self-exiled director raped a child, served the single purpose of invoking the outrage machine against someone Harding deems as indefensible. Rather than explore the nuances of the case and the strange prosecutorial and judicial circumstances of 1977 that was the crux of the matter in 2009, readers were reminded what a monster Polanski is and implying that due process be damned. My post on Roman Polanski was a reaction to Harding’s piece, which I felt was troubling to say the least, in its knee-jerk simplicity that plays to generating controversy. Then again, 722 comments and 236 Facebook likes probably added up to mission accomplished.

Fast forward to this month. Salon posts an OpenSalon blog entry by Heather Michon in the same vein as Harding’s as a Editor’s pick. The focus is on the discrediting of the accuser because of her past lies, some of which are more material to the case than others. Michon is concerned that there’s a gulf between what transpired and whether the government thinks it has a case to make a conviction. This supposed “disconnect” is due process. So, how does this all play out? Salon selectively ignores the accuser’s conflicting stories that can sink the case, while focusing on the scrutiny of the accuser’s past. Meanwhile, others in the media pat the system on the back for “working”, by eventually coming to some “truth”. The reality is that this is all pure theatre and a theatre that’s entering into the logical calculus of those within the institutions that should be above using the media to generate hype for publicity and political gain. This isn’t new, but the ubiquity of media is and this should concern us. The alignment of interests of the media and the state is the logical extension of infotainment presaged by Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities and my sense is that the genie is out of the bottle with little that can be done to put it back.

Casey Anthony & Nancy Grace

The public outrage regarding the Casey Anthony acquittal was pretty predictable. The stage was set for this generation’s OJ trial, fuelled by another media frenzy. The most interesting article I read in the aftermath was Brian Dickerson’s column on how Anthony’s #1 detractor, Nancy Grace, made her acquittal possible.

Nancy Grace became part of a media hype machine, using her punditry soapbox to paint Casey Anthony as incarnate evil, complete with the derisive moniker, Tot Mom. Dickerson argues that the publicity given to Anthony vaulted her from indigent defendant obscurity to a criminal defence lawyer career maker. Grace used Anthony as a punching bag in her well-orchestrated drama of the indefensible defendant. Polanski raped a child and Anthony killed hers. Manufacturing the outrage provides for a clear and easy target to direct the hate in the name of justice. Through the outrage, everyone can participate in meting out justice for the victim, Caylee Anthony.

The problem again is that due process takes a back seat to the hype. Let’s face it, due process isn’t sexy. Particularly when it evokes examples of “technicalities”, allowing the “guilty” to go free.

In another media twist, the defense team used social media to fine tune their approach by analyzing public sentiments. While the efficacy of such maneuvering is still up in the air, crowdsourcing opinions of testimony in high profile cases is likely to be de rigueur.

The selective outrage machine has the potential to morph how we the public form opinions. Appealing to a sense of justice in a juicy narrative is where the media is at, while social media digests it and puts it back out there. This further influences others and serves as a feedback loop into social institutions, such as the courts. I don’t see news as getting better or journalists becoming more ethical about their craft because, frankly, the market could care less and I don’t see any way of legislating style or professionalism, in light of free speech.

No matter how you slice it, Roman Polanski is a divisive figure. I blogged about his detainment by the Swiss police last fall {that post details the case}, when the Los Angeles District Attorney was angling for extradition. I should add that like I said in my earlier blog, I’m not a Polanski apologist and my concerns have to do with civil liberties. The story stirred up quite a bit of emotions with the anti-Polanski camp calling him a child rapist, the victim wanting the whole affair to go away, and his Hollywood supporters making pleas to sway public opinion. Today, the Swiss Justice Ministry refused to extradite Polanski, citing that the LA prosecution failed to provide enough evidence, among other factors. There is no expectation that U.S. authorities will appeal and he’s a free man.

First, I think it should be addressed why the Polanski affair angers so many people. It’s a reminder of an ugly chauvinistic past and the seeming existence of a two-tiered justice system that a CBC article summed it up quite well last fall::

“…For generations, women have suffered unfairly in rape cases, particularly at the hands of the courts. The onus of guilt was often shifted to the woman under the phrases ‘she should have known better’ or, even worse, ‘ she asked for it.’

These ugly phrases and the often lack of support from the police and courts caused untold numbers of women to suffer in silence rather than seek justice in a public forum.

Fortunately, things are changing, but not far enough nor fair enough. Polanski’s efforts to avoid prison —coupled with all the prominent people who are rushing to support him — are a reminder to many women of the unfairness of both public sentiment and the legal system.”

In my previous blog on Polanski, I called into question issues of due process and prosecutorial misconduct. On a Facebook wall, my arguments were reduced to saying that I was equating his crime with possible misconduct::

“[Kenneth Kambara] is trying to equate purported legal misconduct with admitted statutory rape. I think the latter is proven–by admission–and the former possible but unproven. And the efforts to prove it cannot be attempted from Europe.

Polanski wanted to return to the US, that’s why his lawyers were pushing this issue. If extradition is achieved, he will get his wish. He has nobody to blame but himself.”

I must admit I found this to be a curious statement, as in my mind it highlights how the public wants justice and may not have the patience for due process. The above statement refuses to acknowledge that flaws in procedure matter, regardless of the crime and how reprehensible it might be. Nevertheless, being a stickler for due process can upset the sensibilities of fairness when someone who seems dead-to-right guilty gets away with punishment by faulty due process. Yet, without upholding due process, what kind of legal system would there be?

In 1986, Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, Rose Elizabeth Bird {appointed by Jerry Brown}, and several other “liberal” justices were not confirmed in the general election. One of the major issues was the death penalty and how she overturned cases. The reason? Due process. Bird argued in several capital cases that there were flaws in procedural due process and to try again without the flaw. This holds police and the judicial system to a high standard of conduct, in order to limit the incarceration or death of the wrongly accused. I think this can be frustrating to those thinking that this is a travesty of justice, but it goes back to what type of legal system do the people want.

The Swiss Justice Ministry claimed that they didn’t consider Polanski’s crime, but the LA court’s procedures. The ministry requested documents from the meeting where Polanski’s lawyers met with the original 1977 judge, Laurence Ritterband. The U.S. Justice Department refused, citing confidentiality. Arguably, those documents may have proven embarrassing to the California court and harmed the case. The Swiss threw out the extradition request, which only occurs 5% of the time, citing a lack of support for the request and the fact that it came years after U.S. authorities knew Polanski had a residence in Gstaad since 2006, but failed to act until 2009.

I think FoxNews Entertainment hit the nail on the head on how the State of California managed to look like the bad guy in a child rape case::

“…And [Robert] Reuland [a New York City-based criminal defense attorney] says that while California is probably embarrassed by Switzerland’s decision, this could also be the end of their efforts to pursue Polanski, which is probably costing millions and millions of dollars.

‘At some point, California prosecutors have to decide whether they want to keep at something that is taking so much effort and cost. His public nature plays a big role in why they have pursued it for so long now. But after a certain point, California starts looking like the bad guy in a severely botched case,’ he said.

It’s pretty hard to look like the bad guy in a child rape case, but somehow California managed to do it.”

Song:: Echo & the Bunnymen-‘Do It Clean’

Twitterversion:: [blog] Why the Polanski affair is such a hot topic & the intersection of fairness & due process. #ThickCulture @Prof_K