The old-fashioned circus is fading from America’s landscape, but the media circus is now a growth industry, especially during spectacular court trials. Attorney Mindy S. Trossman, who teaches at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, notes that in 1924 the Chicago Tribune Company considered broadcasting Leopold and Loeb’s sentencing hearing live over WGN radio but refrained because their listeners opposed the idea. On Saturday Trossman will be part of a program titled Just Images: Television News Coverage of High-Profile Criminal Trials, which will explore the implications of the O.J.era.
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Just Images takes place at 10 AM Saturday on the seventh floor of the Hotel InterContinental, 505 N. Michigan. Admission is free, but reservations are recommended. Call 629-6023. The Museum of Broadcast Communications, located in the Chicago Cultural Center, is also screening a selection of Barbara Walters, Diane Sawyer, Bill Kurtis, and Court TV videos about notorious criminal trials.
