Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-gvh9x Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-17T15:07:06.094Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Television News and the Supreme Court: Opportunities and Constraints

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2009

Elliot E. Slotnick
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
Jennifer A. Segal
Affiliation:
University of Kentucky
Get access

Summary

“Over and over again … I … was obliged to change what the Court had said to meet the requirements of a producer even though I didn't believe that that's what the Court had said. It basically got down to a contest every night about a quarter of six between what I knew the Court had said and what I knew the producer would accept. And then it got down to a question as to whether we were going to do the story at all.”

Carl Stern, former NBC News Supreme Court reporter

We have underscored in chapter 2 that the Court presents a unique setting for reporters covering the institution and, indeed, that some facets of the beat have important and similar implications for both print and broadcast journalism outlets. It remains important to recognize, however, that all journalistic venues are not created equal and, clearly, are not the same. In this chapter we shall examine the inherent strengths and weaknesses of the television medium for covering the Court. What are the journalistic constraints imposed by the Court itself as well as those associated with the imperatives of nightly newscasts? What changes have occurred in network newscast coverage of the Court in past years and what does the future hold for the relationship between the Supreme Court and nightly newscasts? We shall pay particular attention in this chapter to the issues and concerns raised for television reporters who must cover the Court in “the age of infotainment.”

Type
Chapter
Information
Television News and the Supreme Court
All the News that's Fit to Air?
, pp. 46 - 88
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×