Page 13 - Courting the Media Contemporary Perspectives on Media and Law

4 Geoffrey Sykes

performance seem based in part on misunderstanding. The judge fits easily
into the seat of the studio presenter: the courtroom audience into that of the
studio: the witnesses and parties into the social actors who appear from out of
the audience or on cue, in games, variety and panel television shows. Having
made all these brief if salient points, one needs to be careful not to ignore
those elements of entertainment, glamour, sensationalism and acting, that
mould and shape court proceedings, as they are produced for reception by a
mass audience. The white lights of studio courts can serve both to blur and
reinforce, and not clarify, the traditional boundary of law and media: so much
and no further, one can hear the judiciary murmur at the antics of Judge Judy.
On the other hand, legal practice has shifted the boundary on its own
terms, and stolen the gun on the near monopoly on production exercised by
broadcasters. Despite initial reticence, the teleconference facility has grown
many times for court evidence and examinations of distant or sensitive
subjects: evidence captured on video by police, forensic and expert authorities
is being admitted; students are getting video feedback of their moot court
appearances. The ‗in house‘ adoption of video as a tool or device within courts
might be one factor for the increase in selective permission by television
cameras to court proceedings. Permission for access is increasingly a matter
for the discretion of individual jurisdictions, courts and judges, rather than
binding, general procedural rules. The search for new subject matters for the
so-called ―reality TV‖ genres of television has enabled selected permissions
for crews to accompany police patrols and, without consent of parties, follow
selected cases from first investigation to court appearance and judgment. The
genres of reality television offer more fluid, hybrid shows to accommodate
expectations of media and law professionals in ways not always met by the
narrative modes of television drama.

THE TELEVISED COURT (II)

Brian White (―The Man in the Gallery with the Writing on His Face‖)
provides a case study of a hearing that has been virtually transformed in a
television event. The level of media and public interest in the inquest into
Lady Diana‘s death provided grounds for discretion, in permitting full
coverage not only of proceedings but also of public bystanders and audience.
The study discusses one of the possible consequences of allowing multiple
cameras into court, with consequent online editing, as fixtures, faces and
events that might not attract interest in a traditional proceeding but gain