Ohio State Professor Elliot Slotnick bemoaned the lack of U.S. Supreme Court coverage on television and advocated the introduction of cameras in the courtroom at a speech in Rockefeller Center yesterday.
So many people attended the speech that it had to be moved from 2 Rockefeller to 3 Rockefeller to accommodate all of them. Slotnick called television "an important source of knowledge" about government for the American public.
The Supreme Court, he said, is by its nature the "most invisible branch of government and the one the public knows the least about."
However, he said, Court traditions and television journalism trends are making Court coverage increasingly infrequent or inaccurate. Slotnick said the state of network Supreme Court coverage "is not a pretty picture and getting significantly worse."
In a study he conducted for his upcoming book on network coverage of the Supreme Court, Slotnick said he found that coverage is declining. As Court dockets have shrunk in recent years, network coverage and public recognition of the Court have decreased.
Slotnick listed several other problems in the relationship between the Court and the television media.
He characterized justices' practices, such as refusing to give press conferences and handing down complicated decisions, as "speaking only through their opinions." The behavior isolates the Court from the American public and media, he sad.
Slotnick also said the rhythm of the Court's decision schedule, where multiple decisions are handed down over only a few days in June and July, makes it difficult for reporters to decide what decisions to cover each day, and how much time to devote to each decision.
"Justices don't covet the press," Slotnick said. "The court doesn't leak or spin. Most of what the Court does is invisible, it remains a mystery."
Changes in network news coverage itself and the shift to what Slotnick called "info-tainment," have also contributed to the declining Court coverage, he said.
Slotnick interviewed a number of former and current network Court correspondents for his study and found his subjects to be "extraordinarily open and cerebral" and concerned with the "burden of interpretation" facing reporters covering the Court.
Slotnick finished by stressing that reform of the current Court-media relationship must be a joint effort between both parties and that it "was a situation created by both."
He said that while the media must devote more time to Court coverage, the Court has to open itself up more to the media, not only through coverage, but through public appearances by justices and decision-calendar changes.
