The Daily Background

Rupert Murdoch’s OJ Simpson “If I Did It” special was cancelled of course (and it can truly be called Murdoch’s special, since he owns both FOX and Harper Collins publishers, which were set to broadcast the 2 hour special and publish the book), but that doesn’t stop the controversy from increasing. Now it comes out that FOX tried to bribe the families of the victims in the still-unsolved murder case, to make them keep quiet about their objections.

One family member went on NBC’s Today Show this morning, saying that representatives from FOX had called her lawyers up and offered to give millions of dollars of “hush money” in order to get the family to stop publicly denouncing the TV special and book. They were still planning to run the special and publish the book at that point, however.

You can watch a video of the appearence here (flash video) or here (multiformat choice- Quicktime or Windows Media). Associated Press reports that Murdoch’s Newscorp admits that they offered money to the victim’s families, but denies that it was a bribe to shut them up:

A spokesman for News Corp, owner of Fox Broadcasting and publisher HarperCollins, confirmed that the company had conversations with representatives of Nicole Brown Simpson’s and Ron Goldman’s families over the past week and that the families were offered all profits from the planned Simpson book and television show, but he denied that it was hush money.

Sleezy.

Filed under: News Media, Z-TDB Blog