I have long believed that all trials, except perhaps those involving minors and other select exceptions, should be televised. Citizens have a right to see all three branches of their government in action. Today Congress is on television. So is the president’s State of the Union and other important addresses and events. There is no good reason for making an exception for the judiciary. This is especially true now, when there is so much public distrust of the courts.

If the Trump trial is not televised, the public will learn about the events through the extremely biased reporting of today’s media. It will be as if there were two trials: one observed by reporters for MSNBC, CNN, the New York Times and other liberal media, the other through the prism of reporters for Fox, Newsmax and other conservative outlets. There will be nowhere to go to learn the objective reality of what occurred at trial.

There are of course some small risks associated with televising a highly publicized trial, such as Trump’s in Florida. Participants may play to the camera, but that is already true of members of Congress and other officials whose hearings are currently televised. The public can generally distinguish pomposity from authenticity. But whatever small risks that there are, they are more than outweighed by the benefits of transparency.

[I am more skeptical than the professor is about the impact of television on court proceedings. I watched it distort justice in the OJ Simpson case as everyone in the courtroom seemed more interested in playing to the cameras, and unlike Dersh, I believe it had a big impact on the course of the trial. However, this conclusion is inescapable for this particular trial. The media is not trusted by the American public to relate what’s happening fairly *in general*, and certainly not on anything to do with Trump. Regardless of the outcome, the only way people generally accept it is if they can see for themselves what evidence is brought and what rebuttals to it are made. The historic nature of indicting a former president and candidate for the office again requires wide latitude from the court in this regard. It cannot be seen as a star-chamber affair. — Ed]