Broadcast journalist have long sought the right to bring the tools of their trade into the courtroom, including the top court in the land. Now comes word that one justice thought to be amenable to the idea may have since become a skeptic.
The justice is Sonia Sotomayor. During a book tour, she said she has participated in experiments with cameras in the past but is coming to the conclusion that the Supreme Court is not suited for the presence of electronic news gathering tools.
In the first place, she said the justices go to great pains to publish the reasons they rule a certain way on a given case, to a degree unmatched by any other public servant, according to a report in New York Magazine.
However, she said the actual cases themselves may mislead the viewing public, since the justices often engage in the practice of playing devil’s advocate with counsel, a practice would be completely misleading to many viewers.
A Yahoo report notes that Sotomayor joins former supporter of courtroom cameras Samuel Alito as a developing skeptic. Alito has joked that there is already a great deal of courtroom television on television which would likely provide stiff competition for the Supreme Court.
RBR-TVBR observation: We do not like being lectured to about what we can and cannot handle by somebody whose salary we pay. Here’s a clue: Start off a devil’s advocate question with the phrase, “To play devil’s advocate….”
We continue to find it patently ridiculous that a governmental body with the power to change our lives can only be captured in pencil-and-paper sketches.
It is the opinion of this news organization that if the Supreme Court justices continue to insist on living in the past, they should make do with the amenities of the past. To that end, we will have the judicial lavatories stocked with discarded sketches, to be used for the justices’ personal hygiene.
We’ll leave the supply of modern professionally-manufactured high-quality tissue to those who choose to live in THIS century.
