News
Latest Journal Issue Looks at Cameras in the Courts
08-11-2011
The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Courts and Media has published the summer 2011 issue of the Reynolds Courts & Media Law Journal (available here), which continues the Center's examination of the relationship between the modern media and the courts.
The new issue of the Journal, which coincides with the start of a new test of cameras in selected federal trial and appellate courtrooms, focuses on the issue of the cameras in the court: a question that persists even though almost all states now allow some sort of camera coverage of court proceedings.
The issue includes a history of the camera in the courtrooms issue by Mickey H. Osterreicher, general counsel of the National Press Photographers Association, with a focus on recent developments including the new federal cameras experiment. Tony Mauro, who has covered the U.S. Supreme Court for more than 30 years, writes about the long-running battle over cameras in the High Court. And attorney Paul Lambert proposes a way to use modern technology to finally answer one of the questions at the heart of the debate over cameras in the courts: are cameras really a distraction to trial participants?
In addition, Journal editor Eric P. Robinson, deputy director of the Center, has put together a compilation and analysis of the various federal and state jury instructions on juror exposure to information about cases, with an emphasis on how these instructions deal with and apply to activities such as texting, tweeting or posting Facebook updates about a case, and doing research online.
The theme of the summer 2011 issue of the Reynolds Courts & Media Law Journal is a continuation of the spring 2011 issue, which focused on the impact that social media are having on the courts.
The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Courts and Media is a program of the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, in affiliation with The National Judicial College. The Center is generously funded by the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation.
