PERSPECTIVE ON THE O.J. SIMPSON CASE : Turn Cameras On, Gag the Lawyers : A seasoned trial reporter believes the attorney manipulation of the media justifies her change of heart.

Judge Lance A. Ito may rule today on whether the camera inside the O.J. Simpson trial room should be removed. I am a reporter who for 30 years covered more high-profile trials in this country than any other person I know.

When cameras were introduced into courtrooms, I spoke out in the press, on TV networks and on the radio in their favor, because I fought for decades to have more open courts. I did this even though I knew, as a print reporter, that the use of cameras and tape recorders at trials would give TV and radio their first opportunity to take over what had become the last great newspaper story--the high-profile trial. But I believed then, and I believe now, that cameras give the public their real right to know what happens in the courts, and I urge Judge Ito not to black out the public.

But what I also urge him to do--and I am making a complete and startling reversal of my lifetime beliefs--is to issue a gag order on the lawyers on both sides. The worst problem of the Simpson trial emanates from what is happening outside the courtroom. As a generation of reporters who worked with me will tell you, I always instructed them to “stay inside the courtroom, that is your job, to bring the public inside the trial, where a judge is in charge and where the most important part of your story is what the jury hears from the witness stand.”

The out-of-court coverage has been appalling since early on, but for me it came to a head recently. In what The Times wisely described as a “carefully choreographed” plan, defense attorneys went outside the courtroom to denounce prosecutors for allegedly treating black prospective jurors differently than others. They did not make this accusation to the judge in court and in the presence of the prosecutors, but to the media alone.

I would never have used such an accusation in a story until it was made in open court. But that was then, and this is now, and I realized to my horror that if I were covering the Simpson trial, I would have had to go along with this manipulation. I find that demeaning, unprofessional, unethical. I do not fault the defense attorneys. They are doing what they are paid to do, everything possible to win for their client, just as everything the prosecution says and does is to try to win a conviction.

What I find appalling is the fact that at this trial, because of the overwhelming force of the electronic press, even a reporter who would not want to use any accusation until it was made in court is forced into doing so. That the media can be manipulated and pulled without protest into publicizing whatever the defense--or prosecution--wants them to do is wrong. It is going to leave the media in even a worse position than they are right now, when polls show that the public has lost all trust in newspapers, TV or radio.

There is only one way to stop the out-of-court acrobatics and that is to issue a gag order. This will astound the judges and lawyers and reporters with whom I worked. I have been unalterably opposed to gag rules and fought through difficult times before the courts ruled that a judge may gag his court officers, but cannot gag the press. I used to say that only insecure judges issued gag rules. Now, however, I am making a complete turnaround because of what is happening outside the courtroom.

When defense attorneys Howard Weitzman and Donald Re spoke on the federal courthouse steps where John DeLorean was on trial, they mainly were filling in the TV and radio reporters barred from the court. The prosecutors would have been wise to do likewise. Those remarks were entirely different from the out-of-court statements, theories and accusations that the Simpson press has been feeding on.

Judge Ito, please give the public a break and keep the camera in the courtroom. Issue a gag order to stop the prejudicial comments being fed to an unquestioning and rather naive media. And, oh yes, sequester the jury. Jack Ruby’s jury in Dallas was sequestered in the jail; the Simpson jury could be given much better treatment in a hotel, and could concentrate on the trial if they did not have to go home every night facing possible contamination and family problems. (What the Jack Ruby trial needed was not sequestration but a change of venue. But that’s a whole other story.)