A Judge’s On-Camera Proceeding

As a newspaper that likes to publish interviews with important people in the news, we would be the last to suggest that government officials shouldn’t talk to the media. But we think there’s a time and a place for everything, and we’ll bet we weren’t the only ones left speechless when it was announced last week that Judge Lance A. Ito himself was about to appear in a five-part interview on a local television station.

Ito no doubt gave the interview in good faith, and steered clear of anything germane to the O. J. Simpson case. And no doubt he can argue that there’s a big difference between good media coverage and bad coverage; and that an interview with the presiding judge about his life causes no harm and perhaps interests people in a jurist and his experiences and the bench.

Fair enough but, still, here is someone talking about this, that and the other who is presiding over a case in which overheated media coverage has been such an issue that at one point he threatened to have the television camera yanked from the courtroom. Now he adds to the media attention by agreeing to sit for a TV interview. And the station, naturally, is promoting it to the hilt, which is its absolute right but which only adds to the steam.

To be sure, Ito is a newsworthy figure, and ordinarily we couldn’t be more supportive of openness by public officials. But, given his own impassioned concerns about the atmosphere in which the trial is being conducted, we can’t help thinking it would have been more consistent and seemly for him to have waited until the trial was completed before going on camera.