Ten years ago, when I transferred from the United Press International (UPI) office in Washington, DC to the company's Los Angeles office, and my first assignment was to cover the second Simpson [civil] trial. Every day I made the trek from where I was initially staying (with a friend in Orange County) to the courthouse in Santa Monica. Some mornings, if the rush hour was particularly bad, the trip took 90 minutes.

I was an “outside” reporter. That is, my assignment was to cover what was going on outside of the courthouse. I quickly learned that I had stepped into a kind of circus -- a five-day-a-week “feeding frenzy.” My fellow members of the media fought for any scrap of information, public interest feature or quirky item they could find.

I rubbed shoulders with some of the best-known reporters in the U.S. and local L.A. media. I found that many of those smiling faces you see on TV are really sourpusses, bored with their jobs, who rely heavily on a support staff of low-paid rather young underlings to provide them with background information and stories ideas.

Something else that impressed me was the sheer monetary value of the assembled cameras outside the courthouse. The building was ringed by portable video cameras on huge tripods, batteries fully charged, accompanying reporters at the ready, waiting for someone to exit the building -- hopefully to make some kind of statement. And, if good fortune prevailed, they would have time to record the statement, relay it via microwave back to the station, and get it prepared to go on the evening news.

One day I counted more than a million dollars worth of cameras outside the Santa Monica courthouse. My total included ONLY cameras. It did not include microphones, lights, cables, microwave trucks, tables of catered food, high-priced anchors (stunningly dressed and freshly made up) and a small army of engineers, working at top wages ... by the hour, during what seemed like endless days of waiting.

Some of the larger networks were absorbing the cost of the interminable waiting. They could sell additional sponsorships to their marathon Simpson programs. My company was not so lucky. As you may know, UPI always seemed to be working on a shoestring. To cover the first and second Simpson trials, UPI had to earmark a large portion of its L.A. staff, draining resources, airtime and salaries in that bureau, just trying to keep up with the other media.

Several times I had heard high-level UPI managers say something like this: “If it weren't for the rest of the media being there, we wouldn't be there. This is a non-story.” But we and the rest of the media world WERE there, on an hourly basis, day after day after day.

What amazed me about the flood of media attention paid to the latest Simpson arrest was that no one seemed to have learned anything from the events of a decade ago. Actually, the media attention was worse this time around ... more reporters, more helicopters, more bulletins; more cable networks devoting hours to cover every cough from the Clark County Courthouse in Las Vegas.

Don't these networks have anything else to cover?

I thought it might be instructive to look at the some other news events happening at the same time, events that got little or no attention on any of the national newscasts:

• A new report showed that farmers in parts of the U.S. are increasingly replanting a crop they once eliminated ... tobacco. The reason: increased exports to unregulated countries.
• Doctors announced a new scale for helping cope with pain.
• A major festival was held in New York City in which artists and computer “geeks” joined forces to find ways to make people more aware of the value of life and their surroundings.
• Fitness guru Jack LaLanne (now 92) talked to the Wall Street Journal about the secret of living a longer, healthier life.
• Readers discovered that former “Fed” chairman Alan Greenspan's new book differs from the assumed historical record of his tenure in office.
• Buddhist monks were tear-gassed while protesting against the Burmese government.
• The Boston Roman Catholic Archdiocese issued an official statement about a possible visit of the Pope to the United States.

While all of these important things were happening, why were the eyes of the world focused on a former NFL star-turned mediocre TV and movie personality-turned accused felon?

A better question might be: “How would Edward R. Murrow have covered the entire Simpson saga?” Or, better still: “Would he have covered it at all?”

Dennis Daily is a former 20-year veteran of UPI (United Press International). During most of his tenure there he worked for the now-defunct UPI Radio Network. During several of those years he served as the network's Religion Editor. He previously worked as a national spokesman for the USDA in Washington, was a Congressional Press Secretary, all-news anchor and producer for “The Larry King Show.” He is currently the news director for a cluster of radio stations in California's Central Valley. Long associated with religious programming, Daily returned to his hometown in southern Indiana for 26 consecutive years to anchor and produce five hours from four churches on Christmas Eve. For several of those years the broadcast was relayed around the world via Armed Forces Radio. He can be contacted by e-mail at newscaster@earthlink.net.