The first one I thought of was Princess Diana, this is the 10-yr anniversary of her death, and the media frenzy is already gearing back up. Look for many magazine covers featuring her this summer, I already have seen a couple.
As a sports follower, the media frenzy concerning Barry Bonds (will he be the all time HR leader soon?) and steroid usage in baseball is a daily feature.
Lance Armstrong had quite a media frenzy following for 7 Tour De France seasons.
I’m a bit surprised too, ryobserver.
How 'bout the Million Little Pieces scandal? I can’t remember the name of the author, but I remember the book and that Oprah put it on her book club list.
The congressman caught sending naughty e-mails to underage congressional pages. (I forgot his name)
“Firecrotch”.
The Harvard student caught plagiarizing from a YA novel for her own novel.
To the OP - might want to catch Drew Curtis’ book that’s coming out this month.
Again for historical frenzies, there’s Lizzie Borden.
In fact, one crime novel I read drew parallels between her and OJ Simpson: both were prominent, wealthy individuals with generally clean reputations suddenly accused of a bloody double murder. Both were arrested and tried in a media frenzy, and both used their financial resources and reputations to buy a favorable verdict. Afterwards, both lived the rest of their lives under the shadow of suspicion.
At the tender age of 13, this was the first media frenzy that made me go “Wha…?”
I didn’t get it. Why the hell should I burn my records? He’s right! Hmmmm… I should be careful about listening to the news…
A mindset that has served me well throughout the rest of my days.
Pochacco made me remember The Runaway Bride
Two more with a little blackploitation thrown in for good measure: Susan Smith and my personal favorite Africanized Killer Bees!!! Doesn’t this pic remind you of a porn tape? 
And relatedly, the guy in Boston who claimed a black man killed his wife.
And relatedly, Andrea Yates.
David Koresh/Waco
Hale-Bopp comet suicides
Ruby Ridge
Janet Jackson’s boob.
This thread reminds me of something I’ve thought of for some time, but never got around to doing. I’ve wondered if there is generally one big media event, and as soon as one ends, another one arises. I would find it interesting to plot these events on a timeline, and maybe correlate with statistics concerning news articles or, more recently, google searches/blogs. But that would require more effort than I’ve ever convinced myself to exert.
Tho you mention the past decade, I think this phenomena began with the Iranian hostage crisis. Sure, there were occasional media circuses before that, but it seems to me that they have become more frequent ater that. Court TV has also been a big contributor.
Monica Lewinsky was pretty big.
Wasn’t there something about a moon landing, too?
Loreena Bobbit cutting of her husband’s penis.
That was Mark Foley.
Gay marriages in Boston.
Rock Hudson getting AIDS.
Zsa Zsa Gabor getting arrested.
the Tate-LoBianco murders.
Jim & Tammy Faye Bakker’s downfall.
Britney Spears having a baby.
Madonna having a baby.
The TV movie “the Day After.”
The final episodes of “Cheers”, “the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson”, “M.A.S.H.” and “Seinfeld.”
The trailer (not even the movie, just the ‘coming attraction’ trailer) for “Star Wars I: the Phantom Menace.”
EDIT: Almost forgot - the Martha Stewart trial.
Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka
Pee-Wee getting caught in an adult theater
the cult that killed themselves in the 90s, and were all found covered with blankets and wearing Nike sneakers (why can’t I think of their name?)
I was going to post the same thing. Isn’t it odd that on September 11, 2001, all of the sharks stopped attacking? I mean, we never heard another shark attack story, right? Everyone seemed to stop looking for Chandra Levy on that day, too.
The Heaven’s Gate cult, actually already mentioned by gigi (they were the Hale-Bopp comet folks).
This thread actually reminded me of the Margaret Atwood novel Alias Grace which was a real-life ‘media sensation’ murder trial in the 1840s.
S’more media frenzies -
the Challenger shuttle explosion.
Ronald Reagan getting shot.
John Lennon getting shot.
Any of the (sadly) numerous Columbine-style mass-murder killing sprees (Viriginia Tech being just the latest.)
Woodstock, Woodstock II & Woodstock III.
Cyanide-laced Tylenol.
The bogus Hitler diaries.
At the minute in the UK there’s been the media frenzy about Madeleine McCann who was abducted from a holiday apartment in Portugal a while back.
Here in the US too.
Jeffrey Dahmer
Yesterday I glanced at Yahoo! headlines and somehow my brain conflated two of them. For a second, I thought the lead story was “Duke Lacross Players Capture Fatah Compound in the West Bank.”
I believe that was Charles Stuart.
Yes, thank you. All I could remember was Ken Olin played him in the Lifetime movie.
