[b]Blather From The Cable Jurors[/b] By TIM RUTTEN Published on 6/18/2005 If you hang around a courthouse long enough, one of the things you learn is that people willing to predict a jury’s verdict are the sort who take stock tips from their barbers. These days, however, the news organizations most preoccupied with sensational trials are the cable television news outlets, and they are creatures of appetite rather than principle or even brute experience. … Thus, the broadcast farce in the 90 speculative minutes preceding Michael Jackson’s acquittal in Santa Maria Monday. On Court TV, which routinely uses everything but card stunts to cheer on the prosecution in whatever case it’s covering, those one-time prosecutors turned Valkyrie anchors, Nancy Grace and Kimberly Guilfoyle, unhesitatingly predicted conviction. Over on CNN that’s big CNN, the one that’s still mostly respectable defense attorney Robert Shapiro flatly stated, He’s going to be convicted. Meanwhile, the analysts on MSNBC hedged their bets a bit by parsing the various combinations of conviction and acquittal Jackson might receive. No equivocation at Fox, though, where former prosecutor Wendy Murphy confidently predicted there is no question we will see convictions here.