Should the news media be banned from covering court trials

The hysterical and biased coverage of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial has once again raised questions on where the freedom of the news media ends and the media-driven trial begins.

Just yesterday, the matters may have reached its peak when the judge presiding over the case banned all MSNBC personnel from entering the courthouse for the remainder of the trial. 

This is following an incident where a person who claimed to be an employee for MSNBC allegedly followed a sealed bus with covered windows as it left the courthouse to transport jurors to an undisclosed location. The goal was obviously to establish the identity of the jurors.

Since the beginning of this trial, the media ran a coordinated campaign against Rittenhouse.

The NY Post debunked the following vicious lies spread by the media.

·      All three of the men he shot in self-defense during violent riots were Caucasian, yet the media claimed Rittenhouse killed black BLM protesters.

·      Rittenhouse lives 20 miles from Kenosha in Antioch, yet the media claimed he took an AR-15 across state lines and even accused him of “terrorist tourism.”

·      It was claimed Rittenhouse’s mother drove him across state lines to the riot. It was later proved that she never knew of the protest and did not go to Kenosha. 

·      Wisconsin law permits Rittenhouse to possess an AR-15 as a 17-year-old. Yet the media had claimed that gun was illegal.

·      They claimed he was an “active shooter” who was looking for trouble, this claim was debunked by video footage.

·      Candidate Joe Biden irresponsibly led that charge in a tweet that Rittenhouse is a white supremacist. They claimed he “flashed white power signs”. The FBI scrutinized Kyle’s phone and discovered no white supremacy material.

·      Kyle wore gloves because he was giving first aid to protesters.  Yet the media claimed he wore surgical gloves “to cover his fingerprints.” 

The above instances were not honest errors but purposeful attempts to spread lies with an aim to dehumanize Rittenhouse. The end goal of this sinister dehumanization is to justify going after him by any means possible.

Rittenhouse wasn’t the only target, the media also claimed that the Judge was a 'Trump-supporting racist' making him biased toward the defence. But the Judge is a Democrat, he even contested as a Democrat for the Wisconsin Senate and was appointed by a Democratic governor.

We have a situation right now where even if he is acquitted, Rittenhouse will have to live with the reputation and ignominy that is the result of a vicious coordinated media trial.

Do not be too surprised if a deranged or paid operative attempts to cause physical harm to Rittenhouse and do not be surprised if the attacker receives praise for doing what a ‘white supremacist’ court couldn’t do.

To sum it up, this is a lesson on how not to cover a court case. But do not expect any lessons won't be learned because the acts were malicious and purposeful.

It may seem like a tiresome civics lesson, but when matters have descended into abject insanity, it is worth going back to the fundamentals.

The sixth amendment of the US constitution clearly states that

“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.”

The law also states that 

“A presumption of innocence means that any defendant in a criminal trial is assumed to be innocent until they have been proven guilty. As such, a prosecutor is required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person committed the crime if that person is to be convicted.” 

This gives rise to a fundamental question

Do we allow one essential component of democracy i.e. free media to trample over another essential component of democracy i.e. the right to a free and fair trial?

Firstly, there must be no conflation between factual reporting of a criminal proceeding and a media trial. 

The media has the right and a function to broadcast information to keep the public informed.

However, the media does not have the right to do the following:

·      Run a campaign against a private citizen who is under trial. 

·      Conduct parallel proceedings and proclaim that its view is the only moral view. 

·      Either overtly or covertly pronounces the merits of a case in the court or attempts

·      Cultivate public opinion on guilt or innocence the course of justice has already been subverted.

Only statutorily entrusted personal of the courts have the right and duty to investigate, defend, prosecute and adjudicate over any case. Even a slight external interference causes the trial to not be free and fair. That is undemocratic.

The principle is simple since the accused cannot make public statements or interfere with the manner of investigation or the mode of prosecution, the same rule applies to private citizens that include the private citizens in the media.

The media does have rights, but with every right, there also is a duty. The media has a right to express but a duty to not invade the space of the court trial. The court has a function to be fair and hence any interference is an impediment to their functioning.

While a total ban on the news media in a democratic society is undemocratic but there have to be some basic guidelines and restrictions else the citizen under trial suffers.

A possible solution in the future for such high-profile and sensitive cases is that the courts must only allow essential personal to be present in the courtroom. When the court closes for the day, they can issue a press release of facts for the media to broadcast. Members of the jury must remain anonymous, always.

While the trial must be video recorded for documentary purposes, the trial must not be broadcast anywhere. The broadcast often causes the lawyers to play to the cameras and indulge in amateur theatrics which is then picked up by the media, taken out of context and the result is total chaos.

The US does not have any government-approved regulatory authority for the news media such as Ofcom in the UK, hence it is the court that must evaluate the merit of granting media access on a case-by-case basis.

A civilized democratic country simply cannot afford to have repeated instances of politically charged chaos for high-profile court trials.