and justice for all...

California fertilizer salesman Scott Peterson was convicted of the Christmas Eve 2002 murder of his pregnant wife, Laci. The jury found Peterson guilty of first-degree murder for killing his wife and second-degree murder for the death of their unborn child - crimes he committed to continue an affair he was having with his massage therapist mistress.

This particular crime was more riveting than others for no other reason that the evidence released to the media (very early in the case) seemed to have such a social media bias against Scott Peterson. What happened to objectivity? Innocent till proven guilty?

The accountability that tends to come with a conscientious balancing of news to a wide spectrum, is in this case, still limited to that local perspective, with the "demographic profile, the fact that they are good-looking, the fact that they are from the suburbs and the notion that this kind of egregious or heinous act can occur in that set of circumstances becomes all the more germane and threatening to the average American citizen" the mass media, being a product of the society it is for, makes it a mirror of and for the society...which is what distressed the suburban American.

It shouldn't be surprising then that as the single most influential device for controlling and appeasing the masses, the media is naturally exploited for its persuasion ...which leads me to think that if there ever comes a time when the 'popular vote' is used to decide the outcome of a trial *shudder* it would make the uniformity of ownership of Rupert Murdoch's assets far too influential.