Burger Hints of Opening Court to Live Coverage

Chief Justice Warren E. Burger said Friday that he might favor easing the Supreme Court’s longstanding ban on televised and recorded news coverage of court proceedings.

For the first time, Burger suggested that broadcast news coverage of oral arguments before the court might be permitted if proceedings were covered live and in their entirety, with no reproduction of limited segments on radio and TV news shows.

“Conceivably,” he said, “that might open things up.”

But the chief justice, in a question-and-answer session with members of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, reiterated his general opposition to having cameras and tape recorders in the courtroom. He said that they would be “bad for the country, bad for the court and bad for the administration of justice.”

Although many states, including California, permit electronic news coverage, the federal courts do not. Last month, Burger refused to permit live, uninterrupted radio coverage of two hours of oral arguments before the court, scheduled for April 23, in a widely followed case testing the constitutionality of the Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction law.

In a letter responding to the Mutual Broadcasting System’s request, Burger said that “it is not possible to arrange for any broadcasting” from the court and added: “When you get Cabinet meetings on the air, call me.”

Oral arguments and the announcement of decisions at the court are open to the public and the press, but no cameras or tape recorders are permitted. Seating in the courtroom is limited to about 400 people.

Burger, characterizing television news as “pure and simple show business,” told the editors Friday that it would “serve no useful purpose and damage the whole process” to have only “bits and pieces” of court proceedings on news programs. He strongly criticized television coverage of one lengthy state trial in Florida that he said resulted in only 2 minutes and 55 seconds of coverage on the air, focused exclusively on the prosecution’s opening statement.

Opposes Edited Segments

Burger readily conceded that news organizations might not be willing or able to broadcast court proceedings at full length. He noted that oral arguments before the Supreme Court can be “pretty dull” and jokingly remarked that “sometimes we have to send out for a cup of coffee disguised in a water goblet.”

When asked if he would approve of one network broadcasting an oral argument in its entirety, the chief justice replied: “If there was some way of them saying no one could reproduce any part of it . . . without producing all the rest of it, conceivably, that might open things up.”

He did not elaborate, and the session then came to a close.

Later, Burger’s suggestion that electronic coverage might be permitted in limited form was welcomed by Brian Lamb, chairman of C-SPAN, a cable public-affairs network that broadcasts House proceedings and other events in their entirety. Lamb expressed skepticism, however, about any arrangement that would prevent other news organizations from broadcasting from the court. He added that attempts to grant such exclusive permission might be open to legal challenge.

“Journalistically, I don’t like the idea and I don’t think it would track with the First Amendment,” he said. “But the fact that the chief justice raised a chance of coverage is a major development.”