OJ: The Trial of the Century Twenty Years Later

Whether they were pulled over in snarled traffic on a Los Angeles freeway, or watching from home as regularly scheduled television programming was interrupted, people still vividly remember where they were during the infamous O.J. Simpson white Ford Bronco police chase—more than 95 million watched. In the months that followed, the murder trial of O.J. Simpson created a pre-Internet-era media firestorm and became a flashpoint for debate, disagreement, and disillusionment and the ultimate allegory for tensions that continue to face American society today. On this the twentieth anniversary, The Paley Center for Media will gather a panel of experts associated with the trial alongside prominent media personalities to examine the media’s role in this watershed moment in our country’s perception of the legal system and, indeed, a transformative event in the racial and social history of our nation. The evening will also feature an exclusive sneak peek of Investigation Discovery’s new documentary OJ: TRIAL OF THE CENTURY from Emmy-winning filmmaker Nicole Rittenmeyer. The documentary relies on contemporaneous archival material alone to illustrate the course of events. Without the interruption of modern interviews to provide hindsight, Rittenmeyer’s storytelling triggers the same raw emotion and real-time perspective as when the events transpired all those years ago.