it’s got legs

The story behind the story of the gross OJ book and interview has captured the attention of the New York media crowd, which means the gift will keep on giving for a while. (That’s because New York is a small town and everyone loves to hate Judith Regan—even more than Rupert Murdoch—and people smell blood in the water.)

Today as yesterday, Eat the Press has great links and an excellent analysis, which kinda sorta fits in with what I was saying yesterday about Americans being Puritans and all (as opposed to their British Cousins who are used to this sort of thing in the press):

[Murdoch], NewsCorp and Regan Books all massively miscalculated the how the revulsion/irresistible-train-wreck-schlock-appeal factors would balance out, but he certainly didn’t miscalculate how to turn this lemon into, if not lemonade, then at least an opprotunity to prove that he and his properties were moral, decent, and would take American morals over profits any day. (Rupe doesn’t often get the chance to prove that.)

Well, it sure worked for Sara Nelson, editor in chief of the trade magazine Publishers Weekly and she was ready to forgive and forget immediately upon Murdoch’s pulling the book.

Why did “senior management”—which presumably includes Regan and Harper CEO Jane Friedman—pull the book? Obviously, public opinion played a huge part, as did booksellers’ squeamishness about handling the book, the outrage of media pundits (including Foxies Bill O’Reilly and Geraldo Rivera), and the refusal of many Fox-owned stations to air the Regan-Simpson interview. But make no mistake: this was obviously, also, a business decision: when the public and good portions of the media turn on you, you’d better hope that advertising isn’t your bread and butter. Will the latest turn of events put a crimp in outrageous publisher Regan’s style? Some wags suggested (or hoped) it might, but I sincerely doubt it: Judith Regan has proven to be professionally and, if her recent statements are to be believed, personally extremely resilient. Like another Re(a)gan, she’s the Teflon executive; you can bet she’ll go right on publishing edgy, controversial books—just not this one.

All this, I think, is good news for the publishing business, and for books in general: it proves that there are limits to what a publisher is willing to do to sell books; and it proves that people care about what those books promote or evoke

Michael Cader at PublishersLunch (subscription only) notes that this is not the end of the road, though:

The Gang that Couldn’t Exploit Straight

The lack of any manager truly in charge of Project OJ at HarperCollins, Fox, or News Corp. and the company’s unwillingness to fully disclose the details of the process that got them into this mess is providing a steady stream of oxygen to an eager press corps.

The Observer identifies the person who actually wrote Simpson’s book: “Pablo Fenjves, a former co-worker of Ms. Regan’s at The National Enquirer who was also a witness for the prosecution in Mr. Simpson’s criminal trial.” And they describe part of the process in which Judith Regan tried to enlist network partners outside of Fox. The article says Regan initiated the Simpson book in April (though not explained, they say “it would be a book by O. J. Simpson in which he would not not confess to the 1994 murders”) and started shopping the TV interview four months later.

The LAT confirms in a different way that the planned Simpson television interviews were a late call from Fox executives.

Cader concludes thus:

Even without leaked material, there seems to be a steady supply of News Corp, Fox and HarperCollins “executives” ready to speak anonymously, while waiting for the company to lay everything out.

Sure sounds like it, doesn’t it?