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Court TV

The New York Times published an editorial today calling on the Supreme Court to televise its proceedings. The editors reasoned:

Just last week, [the Supreme Court] heard arguments on a challenge to a harsh Indiana voter ID law, a partisan scheme to disenfranchise poor and minority voters. It was, like many legal showdowns in the court, something Americans would have been interested in observing firsthand. Yet beyond a few hundred visitors, the public was denied that opportunity because members of the court, stubbornly clinging to their clubby ways, refuse to allow their proceedings to be televised...This disdain for openness and transparency by an institution central to the nation's democracy is unacceptable.

I feel very conflicted on this issue. On the one hand, civic literacy in this country is abysmal. Only one in four Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. Twenty-six percent believed the document's purpose was to declare independence from England. And here's a bizarre stat: almost two-thirds of Americans think Karl Marx?s maxim, ?From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs? was or could have been written by the framers and included in the Constitution.

Thus I sympathize with those who argue that exposing more people to Supreme Court proceedings will spur greater understanding of the Constitution and the judiciary. However, the addition C-SPAN has done little to educate the general population about the how the Congress works. If this problem is ever to be remedied, it will be because of education, not television coverage.

Besides, covering oral argument isn't even the best way for the public to increase its understanding of the Court. It's opinions that matter the most, and those have to be read, not watched. Oral argument may occasionally bring a touch of courtroom drama, but that is not what holds legal precedent.

Also, it is a stretch to say that the Supreme Court is not transparent. It is the one institution of government which explains every decision it makes in exquisite detail. In fact the rationale is often more important than the outcome itself. There is plenty of print coverage of the Court's proceedings, and often the Court releases audio files of oral arguments immediately.

But there is something fundamentally different about television coverage - the incompetence of television journalists. T.V. news stories are almost always too short to fully explain the necessary complexities of Supreme Court cases. T.V. journalists rarely have legal training, and it shows. For example, when Bush v. Gore was handed down a CNN reporter was breathlessly flipping through the opinion on camera, and he had absolutely no idea what the outcome was. It would be very easy to take a :10 soundbyte of video footage and contextualize it completely incorrectly.

Furthermore, the Supreme Court is not supposed to be a democratic institution. It is designed to emphasize the impartiality and permanence of the law. That's why there are only nine members with lifetime tenures. Even the black robes are designed to de-emphasize the personalities of the justices. Putting the justices front and center on TV gives the public the wrong impression about how the Court functions.

Look I whole-heartedly support C-SPAN, but televising the Court is completely different. Television coverage of the legislative branch is a great service because it increases the ease with which voters can hold their elected officials accountable. They can make more informed choices because of greater access to their legislator's actions. But the public cannot hold the Supreme Court accountable in the next election, so its "right to know" is less important. I'm not saying it's better that the public remain ignorant, though that will probably be the case either way. What I am saying is that the information the public does receive should be full and complete and not subject to the manipulation or oversimplification by the retards at CNN and MSNBC.

And I'm not gonna even think about how Fox News would screw up TV coverage of the Supreme Court...

Full post as published by Supreme Dicta on January 25, 2008 (boomark / email).