Media battle heats up as Knox trial approaches end

International media descends on Perugia to witness climax of four-year crime story that has captivated the world.

PERUGIA, ITALY (SEPTEMBER 28, 2011) REUTERS - While Amanda Knox fights to overturn her murder conviction, a parallel battle is being waged outside court by a breathless media so intertwined in the case that both the prosecution and defence have begged the jury to ignore the coverage.

A small army of journalists has descended on the hilltop town of Perugia as the American student's appeals trial draws to a close, packing the centre with satellite trucks, chasing the Knox family around town, tweeting each minute detail and fuelling rumours like plans for a private jet to fly Knox home.

Many of the nearly 400 accredited journalists -- from as far away as the Ivory Coast and Australia -- have followed every twist since Meredith Kercher was found with her throat slit in 2007, offering media a riveting sex, drugs and blood saga featuring everything from vibrators to Satanic rituals.

With each outlet hoping to bag the first interview with Knox should she walk free, U.S. television networks have flown in star anchors and set up satellite trucks outside a luxury hotel where the Knox family can be seen dining during court breaks.

Daily hearings almost inevitably start with a throng of cameras shoving each other out of the way as they rush down the stairs to the frescoed courtroom, while reporters tweet from an overflowing press room and mob lawyers stepping out of court.

CNN International correspondent Matthew Chance says the question of whether or not Amanda Knox's murder conviction will be overturned is captivating audiences across the globe.

"I think you know there's been a lot of people out there in the United States, in Europe, elsewhere in the world as well, who have been following this with some interest. Remember it's been going on for several years and what we're seeing now here in Perugia is the climax, the culmination of what have been years and years of very fascinating, very contorted legal arguments, and so people are very much interested in what this is going to produce. I mean we could see Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito walk free in a few days, and that's obviously fascinating," he said.

In the four years since Meredith Kercher's murder, Italy has witnessed a major earthquake, sex scandals starring the prime minister and a debt crisis that risks sinking the entire eurozone. But that hasn't pushed Amanda Knox down the news agenda.

Since Knox and her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were found guilty in 2009 of murdering Kercher during a drug-fuelled sexual game gone wrong, the case has been the subject of more than a dozen books -- each promising the definitive account of what really happened. Dozens of blogs attacking or defending Knox have sprung up and even a television movie has been made.

Knox's fresh-faced good looks and the salacious media accounts of sex and drugs among the young foreign students spending a free-spirited semester or two in Italy have been a big part of the appeal of the case.

Barbie Nadeau, a Newsweek reporter who wrote the book "Angel Face" on Knox, says the breathless media coverage is a large part of why the story just won't go away.

"I think it's the media's fault that we're all here, because the way the story's been covered has created such an emotional divide - especially between the Americans and the Europeans - and I think that we've basically created this beast and now we're feeding it in some strange way. The story was interesting from the beginning because Amanda Knox seemed like such an unlikely assassin. She seemed you know like the girl next door, how could she possibly have been involved in a sex murder? People really latched on to that," she said.

Prosecutors last week told jurors to ignore an "obsessive" media campaign that made everyone feel like Knox's parents, while the defence has blamed the media for helping create a false image of Knox as a vampish man-eater.

Much of the initial media coverage, especially in Italy, was quick to portray Knox as a likely assassin, picking up the prosecutors' portrayal of her as a sex-crazed party girl who led her naive boyfriend in a violent sexual assault.

Since then coverage, especially in the United States, has focused on apparent inconsistencies in the trial evidence and increasingly cast Knox as an innocent victim trapped abroad in the clutches of a medieval justice system. That is partly due to a forensics review that cast doubt on DNA evidence used to convict her and partly due to a tireless public relations effort by her family that one British media commentator likened to a "U.S. election campaign".

Nadeau likens it instead to an addictive reality TV show, with viewers waiting for the denouement with bated breath.

"It's sex, drugs, lies - you know, young college girls, and these are very much the elements of reality TV I suppose too. We live in a reality TV culture and I think that in many ways I think that this seems to be, in many ways we're on the set of a giant reality TV trial. And Saturday night or Monday when the verdict comes, we're just going to see an unreal reaction either way, no matter how it goes," she said.

The Knoxs, who have hired Seattle public relations firm Gogerty Marriott, regularly appear on U.S. morning talk shows, backed up by a supporting cast including Knox's friend Madison Paxton and former FBI agent Steve Moore. Websites like Friends of Amanda and Amanda Knox Defence Fund have also campaigned to free the Seattle student, alongside "pro-Meredith" blogs like True Justice For Meredith Kercher and Perugia Murder File.

So polarizing is the topic that reporters covering the trial have been dubbed as either "innocentisti" or "colpevolisti" based on whether they believe Knox is innocent or guilty of the murder.

Knox was sentenced to 26 years in jail and her former boyfriend Sollecito 25 years. The verdict in their final appeal is expected within days.