Cameras in the Courts: A Dissent

It's strange that they don't tell us why we should have cameras in the court in the first place. Perhaps they've forgotten section 131-1 (a) of the Uniform Rules for the New York State Trial Courts. According to that section, audio-visual coverage of court proceedings is justified because "an enhanced public understanding of the judicial system is important in maintaining a high level of public confidence in the judiciary."

In the ten years since section 131-1 went into effect we have seen increasing television coverage of trials, not only in New York but across the country. In the same period public confidence in the judicial system -- and, indeed, in the entire legal profession -- has plunged. By any measure one cares to use, the judiciary is held in lower esteem now than at any time within memory.

I am not suggesting that television coverage of trials has been the sole or even the major cause of this decline. But it hardly makes the experiment look like a success. A decade of "educational" broadcasting has done nothing to build public confidence in the judiciary, and may even have eroded the trust New Yorkers used to have. Our fears of courtroom circuses might have been unfounded; but the hope that television coverage would help the public understand and appreciate the courts has proved every bit as illusory.

That is not all. Those who defend the broadcasting of court proceedings insist that increased public scrutiny will lead to better courts, as well as better-understood ones. They have no proof of this claim, only a confidence that television will involve the public in the courts more closely, and will encourage the judiciary and attorneys to rise to the highest standards.

But this, too, is an illusion. Television has had disastrous effects on our political campaigns, on the conduct of our legislatures, and on the consideration of appointees like Supreme Court Justices. Sound bites, glib half-truths and startling if poorly-founded accusations have taken the place of debate and discourse. The business of the nation is shaped by what makes a good 30-second spot on the six o'clock news. For all their lip service to the public good and the integrity of the news gathering function, our television networks have only one goal: to make money. Entertainment sells; entertainment value gets one on television; and since politicians need television exposure, they are forced to be entertaining in order to succeed.

TV stations do not broadcast trials because the owner wants the public to be informed. The cameras are there because the courtroom provides cheap programming. Does anyone imagine that the O.J. Simpson criminal trial was broadcast because it raised important social issues? Or the first Menendez trial? A serious scholar of the media, Rutgers professor Richard Heffner, has expressed concern "about the notion that somehow or other courtroom procedures are part of the circuses of contemporary life." Yet most television stations are not likely to give up their valuable air time for anything but a sensational, highly-publicized, circus of a trial. Even if we resist the temptation to become media stars, television's selective view of the judicial system gives the public a very partial, misleading picture of the courts.

Many of us sit in older buildings, dating from the time when the county courthouse was the most visible symbol of a community's pride and its faith in its own institutions. Quite a few of those courthouses were designed to look like Greek or Roman temples, and with good reason; what goes on in our courtrooms is a mix of drama, ritual, factual inquiry and forensic combat, held in an atmosphere of impartiality and sober pursuit of the truth. How can that atmosphere survive when the world is watching? George Gerbner, former dean of the prestigious Annenberg School of Communications, notes that "when you change the audience, you change the proceeding." The effects may be subtle, and they may not be noticed for years; but by then it may be too late. It is important, above all, to remember what we are here for. As Dean Gerbner reminds us, "The purpose of the court is not education or spectacle or public entertainment, but justice."