San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders is right on in this column on the Lori Hacking/Laci Peterson/hyped-murder-of-the-day cable news phenomenon:

Here we go again.

Another beautiful young white woman missing and another hinky husband — add them together, and you get another murder-trial media circus…

The trial has become a spectator sport. Analysts talk about the defense attorney as if he is a star pitcher. A good cross examination is a home run. They marvel at his technique. They opine on who has a good offense and a good defense. You would never guess somebody had died.

Last year, I defended why the media would cover Laci Peterson’s disappearance. If a story is of interest to readers and viewers, I said, the media should cover it. And I still believe that.

I simply do not understand how anyone but family and friends can still be interested in the trial, as TV covers it. The experts have taken a quest for justice and turned it into a game. A game show.

As the late great Jerry Nachman of MSNBC put it, the Peterson story is “crack for us in the business … we can’t stop ourselves…”

Read the whole thing.