Cameras In the Jury Room
We find ourselves agreeing with columnist George Will that the Jury Room Is No Place for TV. The issue is allowing television coverage of a jury's deliberations in a death penalty case.
"In a society saturated by entertainment values, "the public's right to know" can be an excuse for voyeurism tarted up as a journalistic imperative. However, the public's fundamental right is to good government, and the function of juries is to produce justice, not entertaining journalism.
Here is some background on the case, which involves a request by Frontline, a show we much admire, to tape deliberations in a Texas capital murder trial - with the permission of the defense--and the reasons we oppose it.
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