I don't care why Murdoch canceled the show and the book. This isn't a First Amendment issue as has been suggested. Regan's free to find another publishing house, to self-publish, or to make the interview into a paid Internet event.
Consolidation of the media? Oh god. The media's been consolidating forever. Like it or not this is a capitalist country. The people with the most gall usually win. Fox, the TV station, has been bombing. It picked even more stupid programs than the other stations and that's difficult.
Murdoch and Fox let Regan act unchecked because she is a powerful woman who has made them a lot of money. When they found out what she was doing they should have pulled the plug, but greed won until there was a public outcry.
I can't pretend to know if Regan really was abused or not. Her story is a bit too textbook for me, but that does happen. If she was abused I find it ironic that she was able to go on to such power, as abuse really is a crime of power.
I know many women who have been abused. Usually, no matter how polished we are on the outside, there is a bit of hesitancy to some of our actions. People do notice. We who are overly articulate, tend to talk about our abuse, not often and not to everybody but enough. Talking brings back a measure of control, as does success.
Regan's career success might have brought her a lot of control. She might have even believed that she controlled the interview with O.J. Her statement showed that she obviously didn't.
I am being contradictory and hypothetical, because I only have hypotheticals to work with, and abuse is contradictory. As with grief there are known stages but the stages don't always come in order. Unlike grief there are more variables at play. Variables we simply don't know or understand yet.
I just find it impossible to believe that a very bright woman would believe this to be a cathartic experience for anybody but the most vulnerable. While people are screaming about how sick she is and has been, as long as she didn't dance nude in the fountain outside the old Plaza Hotel, nobody cared. They probably would have excused that also as she made so much money.
Article comments
1 - Maria
Thank you for a great article. I was never abused but had all my civil rights violated by the police who were acting for a political fundraiser who thought I had somehow maligned him (I hadan't). I will never trust the police again, and I finally learned the hard lesson about what people with money and influence can do to innocent people - on a whim. People have encouraged me to write my story up, but I'm afraid no one would believe me.
I wouldn't be concerned about Judith Regan feeling that O.J.'s sicko book would be cathartic. She is only interested in money and in making big deals. She never saw anything in that book except potential dollar signs.
An excellent article.
2 - Jeff
Your last paragraph sums up a whole lot perfectly.
I'm glad to know one can still go too far in this country.
3 - p
The
New Yorker reported that the ghostwriter said another house might pick this up
It's what I would expect as we have become a culture that no longer cares about humans or talent, but profit and too many people feel that way
4 - Doug
I wonder about media consolidation. With more and more of us reading each other's opinions, stories and smut instead of the published ones, I'm not sure the media is consolidating over all.
As always, a well-written and thought-provoking post, Pia.
5 - Elvira Black
Pia, thanks for this. What you said about charming sociopaths is all too true--that is one of their deadliest weapons. In my opinion, it seems like being a sociopath in our society is "good for business." A lack of conscience or remorse can make one's path to "success" that much easier to achieve--and it appears to be tolerated more and more on a personal and professional level.
6 - EsotericWombat
As I am wont to do, I tried to find another angle on this. All I could come up with is that if OJ really wasn't the killer, this would be the perfect way for him to thumb his nose at the people who used the assumption that he was guilty to ruin him, while trading on that same assumption to make a tidy sum.
Which is still a pretty sick thing to do, but no one, even his lawyers if I recal correctly, ever made the argument that he was redeemable as a human being, and even a good man would be capable of some serious spite after that kind of ordeal.
It's a hypothetical, of course.
And you're absolutely right about Judith Reagan. Her actions have been unconsionable and her explanations ludicrous.
There is, however, the nagging voice in the back of my head that's saying, "Living in a country with free speech means that sometimes you get offended."
Which doesn't make it any less the right decision to pull the plug on it.
In any case, well done
7 - Chandira
Great article Pia, as always.
I was abused too, by a schoolfriend, and the only thing OJ or Regan could possibly do that would help me out, would be to jump off a tall building, or at least disappear into obscurity forever.
I am also 'over it' now, it happened 20 years ago, and it made me who I am, and that I'm weirdly grateful for, but this stupid kind of (as you rightly called it) armchair therapy, does nobody any good. Least of all women who have been abused.
8 - MarioGeorgeNitrini111
Ms Savage,
Excellent article, and your statement: "Why do we let so many people get away with so much as long as they make money?" Because "MOST" of the "WE" are "GTULESS COWARDS."
I was personally involved in The OJ Simpson Case. Listen to this: My 18 Minute audio tape/Parker Center/OJ Simpson/Citizen's Arrest's, ECT
WHAT-AN-ILLEGAL-COVER-UP, AGAIN.................This is just one situation of an Illelgal cover-up by The LAPD concerning me, The OJ Simpson Case, and other Cases. I would really Appreciate it if BlogCritics would QUIT Editing my Comment's, Thank You. It appears Ms. Savage that I am from your generation also.
Mario George Nitrini 111
9 - Baronius
I wonder... I haven't followed the story or anything, but do you think Judith Regan was trying to "fix" O.J. through some attempt to help him accept responsibility? Aren't victims of abuse prone to that kind of grave misjudgement of character?
10 - pia
Thanks for the comments. As people who read my blog know I'm not big on comment moderation, but I had to answer that last one.
"victims of abuse" speaks for a class of people. I can really only speak for myself, not even the people I know who were abused or who I counseled.
Obviously I made a "grave misjudgement of character." So did most people who met Zachary.
People fall for horrible people all the time, in ones personal life. It's very different than reading and sizing up people in the business world. You can be the best judge of character in the entire business world and still fall in lust with the worlds biggest loser.
Women might doubt their ability to judge a persons character after they have been abused. That doesn't mean that they can't.
When Regan made that statement two Friday's ago, she blurred the boundaries between personal and business. Her abuse happened many years ago but apparently it wasn't something that she had dealt with.
Or she had and thought that making the statement would show how great she is and that people would want to buy books and to see the interview because she had been abused.
Don't mistake falling in lust with a sociopath with not being a good judge of character.
It would take me all night to list all the well-known business people who are known for good sense who mistook a sociopath for a great business man.
11 - Doug
Oh, I sure want to remember "Don't mistake falling in lust with a sociopath with not being a good judge of character." Classic Pia.
12 - cooper
Spot on Pia.
I feel the same way about the whole situation. I could care less about anything to do with OJ, but Regan tooK the megalomania thing a bit too far.
I find it astonishing that Murdock showed half of a ball and pulled the plug, quite likely due to the lack of sponsorship or threats of such.
Thanks for this is was great.
13 - pia
ABC bought the interview. Only for 500K but...Regan will make her way back to the top, or still is.
We are the problem because the American will watch the interview. The book will be published and people will buy it
When people complain about the banality of publishing and TV they have no right to.
Writer/bloggers should give a damn about this because it does affect them
14 - Jason
Right the hell on, chica. People wonder why there hasn't been a monumental novel, a Hemingway-esque, Harper Lee-style barnburner to light up the 21st c. literary scene. The problem isn't that nobody has written one; the problem is finding a publishing house willing to market something beyond pop fodder. I'm starting to think we've entered the "Anti-80s" - the realization, hopefully, that making money on just about anything isn't anywhere near as important as how one makes it.
Again, awesome post.
15 - john
Judith Regan is real trash. A literary slut.
16 - Ben
Yeah, but her managers are a lower form of scum for supporting her efforts and throwing her to the lions.