PressEthic

Senator Arlen Spector (R-PA), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, recently introduced legislation, SB 1768,that would allow sessions of the Supreme Court to be televised. While the court releases audio recordings, it has thus far refused to allow cameras into hearings.

Spector, who first introduced the legislation in 2000, in response to public interest in the Bush V. Gore case which decided the presidential election, stated that audio recordings are "ill-suited to capture the nuance of oral arguments and the sustained attention of the American citizenry." Translation: come on! These people have the attention span of gnats. They don't even read the paper, for goodness sake!

And that's just it-- the American public needs to pay attention, and there's something uncharacteristically wholesome about legislatures trying to actually inform the public about issues. Yes, the Court decides on issues that are about real people, with real problems. But these are not little problems. These are big problems, with constitutional questions. The outcomes affect everyone.

In a recent CNBC interview, Justice Scalia declared his hard-lined approach to the idea: No way. "We don't want to become entertainment. I think there's something sick about making entertainment out of people's legal problems." Since when does anyone find the Supreme Court to be "entertainment?" While newspapers are trying very hard these days to make news entertaining, it's still news.

I'm not sure about the Neilson ratings, I'd be willing to venture that C-SPAN (and C-SPAN2) rate fairly low. I understand the wish to keep political games out of the chamber and avoid the grandstanding that comes with being on television. I don't, however, have enough faith in the American public's interest in Supreme Court rulings to think that would be a problem. As long as the constitution stands and Supreme Court Justices are not subject to election, cameras should have no affect on the way they do their jobs.

What gets me is that none of this information is off limits now-- Scalia is not defending any degree of secrecy. Audio tapes of hearings are released, and the public is welcome to sit in on sessions. To make a distinction between types of media seems arbitrary and petty. There seems to be a fear that justices will fall victim to out of context sound-bites that tend to pervade television. While it's less immediate, the audio files are already available, and that's the same thing, isn't it?

The Supreme Court is an institution marked by caution, so it's only fitting, and probably wise, that they don't jump into the world of television full force. I don't think, however, that it's a bad thing to allow the public to be more informed. As for a fear of misinterpretations-- let the media screw it up before condemning them.