My only comment in this whole thing is that there should be no more of these hours long intense entertainment court lawyer carrying on and spewing forth BS stories of "what may have happenned" and then go on and on about it for hours ad infinitum... IT'S JUST TOO MUCH NEWS!!! It's no longer news people, in case you haven't noticed, it's brainwashing as well. It's just wrong, and the only reason it happens is because lots of people want to watch it. It's better revenue than soap operas with a fraction of the production costs and seven times the audience in a prime demographic. In other words, they are raking in money hand over fist by keeping you tuned in, and are destroying the legal process in the mean time. Just report the facts.... When Walter Cronkite retired, that pretty much ended the era of television journalism. It pretty much all started with Geraldo's "Al Capone's Vault" show. That's when they knew they had something and it changed to a more circus entertainment roll and a couple extra shows a week were added. Then Gulf I came along and CNN flogged an entire 9 hrs of footage into many weeks worth of material footage aand just repeating and going here and there and not really saying anything useful. That's when the quantity went out of control as well.
For sure. I saw something saying that Nancy Grace's ratings went way up during the trial. Which is embarassing.
It really has to be reigned in. It's awful for our society because so much is incorrect as we all know from aviation articles. What makes you think that these people are any smarter or better informed?
What do you do? A law saying, "unless you toe the line (whose line?), you're required to keep your mouth shut?" Barring the media? Closing courtrooms?
Between two poor choices, I'd rather have a media circus at my trial than a media blackout, no matter how short.
Here's just one of the problems you're looking at. Let's say we pass a law prohibiting any publications about criminal trials. Now let's say a public official, maybe the Mayor, is charged with something like embezzlement. Problem 1: if no publications are allowed, how is anyone going to know?
Now, let's pretend that people do know, and a whole bunch of locals want to show up for the next hearing on June 15, when the mayor is either going to take a plea or choose a trial. But, let's say the mayor is fairly good friends with the prosecutor. What happens when the prosecutor decides he wants to drop the case because the mayor is such a good pal, and both the mayor and the prosecution ask that the hearing be reset for June 10, just so a quick plea to something like a speeding ticket can be made without the public knowing about it until afterwards? In our system, once it's done it's done - you don't get to renege on a plea deal just because it's a crappy deal for the people. If you bar publications, you're setting up exactly that kind of environment.
It works the opposite way, too - it hardly takes any searching to find instances of crooked judges, dishonest lawyers, bad prosecutors, who would railroad somebody in a heartbeat if they thought they could get it done before the public really found out about the details. As a matter of human nature, it's a lot harder to get upset about something already done and over with than it is about something that is still ongoing. What do you think would have happened in that Duke case if there hadn't been national, or even local, attention focused on it?
I'd say that the problem isn't the media, but is rather the public's apparent desire to be outraged over something, anything - the bad defendant's wanton conduct, the evil prosecutor's shocking conduct. The morbid desire to be told how bad things are for us (well, not really for us, but the other people that these things happen to), and it's only made better when it's presented in a package designed to elicit such a response.
That's what I would say is the issue, and I don't have any idea of how to address it. The go-to answer is education, but all the education in the world won't do a thing if it falls on deaf ears.
