The Knife That Killed The OJ Book

Idon’t have anything original to say about the whole O.J. Simpson farce (which would have been funnier if it didn’t involve two dead people and the judge and prosecutors that helped get the Juice off through their incompetence and glory-seeking), except to note this paragraph from The Washington Post story, not seen elsewhere, that, I think, explains why Murdoch stuck a knife in Judith Regan and killed the project:

By the time Murdoch put out his statement, booksellers had returned some 70,000 copies of “If I Did It,” according to the HarperCollins executive. “The accounts were treating the book as if it were pornography,” the executive said.

Now, I try to avoid cynicism. It’s a bad habit from my youth. So I’ll explain that, given the nature of corporations to vie for profit, and that we know that Murdoch and Regan care as much for the feelings of the families of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman as O.J. did, that they weren’t going to let a bunch of namby-pamby petitions and editorials stand in the way of a sure-fire #1.

Not even the prospect of a dozen stations pulling the show wouldn’t have affected matters, because the publicity over the interview-that’s-heading-to-a-YouTube-near-you was enough to guarantee interest, not to mention all the tsk-tsking news stories that will appear the day after the book hit the stores.

But 70,000 returns? That ain’t chicken feed. And the additional booksellers who weren’t going to stock the book but will take orders only was going to hurt sales further, putting a severe crimp into News Corp.’s cash flow.

In the end, it was the booksellers, supported by their customers, who tipped “If I Did It” into the pulp mills where it belongs.

UPDATE: Jeez, can I call it or can I call it: Simpson interview could turn up on Web – Yahoo! News

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