SANTA MARIA — Here at the intersection of weird and weirder -- a.k.a. the People vs. Michael Jackson -- Peter Shaplen arrives for work in the courthouse parking lot each morning. That's right: He is working in the parking lot. On the asphalt.
Shaplen, the son and grandson of distinguished journalists, is a former Bay Area television news director who is certainly accustomed to more comfortable accommodations. Here, on the windblown blacktop of the Santa Maria courthouse, though, he seems to have found something of a calling.
He is the media coordinator at the Jackson trial, a freelancer paid by a consortium of networks, funneling information and running interference between the courts, law enforcement agencies and scores of journalists, delicately maneuvering, making sure the media beast is sated each day while ensuring compliance with (or when necessary, battling) the sometimes rigid decorum orders of Judge Rodney S. Melville, in whose courtroom the case is being heard.
Jackson trial -- An article in Wednesday's Calendar section about the media coordinator in the Michael Jackson trial identified the media coordinator for the Kobe Bryant case in Eagle, Colo., as a retired CBS technician. In fact, the coordinator, Wayne Wicks, was a producer, writer and director of operations at CBS.
Others have done this work before. There was a media coordinator in the O.J. Simpson trial, and there was one -- a retired CBS technician -- for the Kobe Bryant case in Eagle, Colo. But no one has taken the job to this level -- helping negotiate the "media impact fee" required by the county of Santa Barbara, assigning courtroom seats for reporters and artists, helping a reporter on deadline recall an exact quote from the day's testimony. "I think what makes Peter different is that it has gotten so complicated and he has been able to juggle everything from lost and found to helping shape media motions that go before the court," says Jennifer Siebens, West Coast bureau chief for CBS and Shaplen's de facto boss. "He handles editorial and logistical concerns. He is focused and he is very, very fair." If Shaplen has alienated anyone along the way, they aren't saying.
A veteran newsman, Shaplen is mindful of the paradox embodied in the daily ebb and flow of the latest celebrity criminal trial: the seamy particulars of the alleged crimes juxtaposed against the high-mindedness of the American judicial process. He is impatient with reporters from national news organizations who sometimes grumble about wasting their time here.
