-different type of institution than Congress or the presidency

-no electoral imperative for leadership publicity or credit-claiming

-less open

-less coverage

-less public interest

-less voter knowledge (few can name Supreme Court Chief Justice)

-Rehnquist--41% don't know or no opinion

-Queen of England--11%

-Jerry Seinfeld--14%

-Sammy Sosa--15%

-Donald Trump--9%

Patterns of Court Coverage
-Slotnick book--little coverage of courts compared to Congress and presidency

-only 40 reporters cover Supreme Court as major beat (Alexander Wohl, Supreme Court Report)

-far fewer than Congress or presidency

-16,000 covered 2000 party conventions

-4,000 covered Timothy McVeigh execution
-Supreme Court proceedings not televised

-internal debates not open to outsiders
-some states recently have allowed broadcasting of trials, while others do not
-reporters have more difficulty penetrating legal institutions, uncovering behind-the-scenes stories, and doing investigative journalism
-court norm of secrecy

-fewer leaks--Congress is sieve compared to Supreme Courts (but note exception of Bob Woodward, The Brethren)
-court officials like to maintain facade of non-partisanship and non-politicization

-focus on big spectacular decisions while ignoring most others

-emphasize human interest, not policy angles

-difficulty of explaining rationale for court decisions and importance of precedents (problems of legal nuance)

-Richard Davis book, Decisions and Images--most common topic of AP stories was about economics

-example--US v. Microsoft (classic anti-trust case)

-bias in favor of "First Amendment, death penalty and abortion cases"

Recent Changes in Court Coverage
-Court TV--cable network that broadcasts live trials--William Kennedy Smith sexual assault trial, Menendez brothers on trial for murder of parents

-cameras had been banned in many courts in 1930s following sensationalized trial of Bruno Hauptman in Lindbergh baby kidnapping trial

-O.J. Simpson murder trial--live coverage by Court TV, CNN, and MSNBC (big jump in ratings)
-tabloidization of court coverage--shift from covering formal proceedings to re-enactments, paying sources for information, interviews with peripheral figures (maids, drivers, nannies, secretaries), polls, and pundits
-migration of campaign-style coverage to legal institutions

-trial of the 20th century

-riveted nation with ingredients of murder, race, and domestic violence

-saturation coverage

-live broadcasting gave viewers first-hand, unedited impression of what was going on

-public opinion divided by race--majority of whites felt Simpson guilty, while majority of blacks did not

-different coverage by mainstream and specialty press

a) mainstream press presumed Simpson's guilt

b) black newspapers spun case as framing job by bigoted law enforcement and legal system

-the exception of Today Show and Byrant Gumbel--more cautious about guilt and sympathetic to Simpson

-politics of language

-competing media frames (DNA versus planted evidence)

-competing interpretations of prosecution and defense

-Cochran strategy of "sending them a message" (similar to George Wallace in 1968)

-use Mark Fuhrman to attack presecution

-covered by local media but receive less coverage nationally (unless unusual circumstances)

-little attention devoted to appellate courts

-48 states allow some TV coverage (exceptions are South Dakota and Mississippi)

-federal appeals courts have power to televise arguments in civil suits (only used by NY and CA)

Broadcasting Oral Arguments of the Supreme Court
-should we have a national channel like C-SPAN that covers oral arguments before the Supreme Court (but not the justices private conferences debating actual cases)?

-David Souter quote--"the day you see a camera coming into our courtroom, it's going to roll over my dead body." (NY Times, Nov. 26, 2000)
-benefits--would educate Americans on legal system and help overcome lack of information on how justices hear cases
-problems--justices playing to the cameras the way Senators are thought to do; end of court's privileged status in eyes of American public; would see courts as just another political institution

-election night exit polls

-recount and six week controversy

-lessons for 2004

-media coverage of historic court case on 2000 Election

-live TV coverage of Florida Supreme Court (innovative use of website to provide access to briefs and court decisions)

-no live coverage of US Supreme Court

-but historic break-through--delayed audio broadcast immediately following the event

-fiasco of decision release (no web access; complicated decision; no press conference, no press release)

-network reporters reading parts of decisions out loud as they scanned document

Lessons for Media Coverage of Courts
-court needs to develop new media system with PR strategy

-use of website (poor marks in egovt study)

-dangers of having a public that is so uninformed about court processes and norms
-longterm threat of media tabloidization to legitimacy of courts
-problem of racial divide in views of legal system--whites trust police and think legal system is fair, while non-whites are far less likely to hold these views
-how will media fragmentation and rise of Internet affect coverage of American courts?

Richard Davis, Decisions and Images: The Supreme Court and the Press, Prentice Hall, 1994

Thomas Marshall, Public Opinion and the Supreme Court, Unwin Hyman, 1989

David O'Brien, Storm Center: The Supreme Court and American Politics, 2nd edition, Norton, 1990 

 Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong, The Brethren, Simon and Schuster, 1979