Tag Archives: Marathon bombing

July 27, 2013 · 11:32 am

TV in courtrooms

By Christopher B. Daly

Here’s another reason to put TV cameras in federal courtrooms: There are people who need convincing that the Boston Marathon bombing actually happened. Some folks apparently think the whole thing was a hoax, or a secret mission by U.S. Special Ops, or maybe it was a joint Pope/IMF/Mossad operation? In any case, a televised trial will demonstrate that there is, in fact, plenty of evidence to convict the surviving Tsarnaev brother and that in the U.S., even rotten bastards who don’t deserve it get a fair trial. According to today’s Boston Globe, there are a sizable number of people around the world who think that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is either innocent or cute, or both. 

Without video, any trial will involve sketch artists trying to capture the likeness of Tsarnaev in chalk. Now, what is the argument for that?

Dhozhkar Tsarnaev in a police photo at his arrest. His forehead is lit up by laser sights on sniper rifles.

Dhozhkar Tsarnaev in a police photo at his arrest. His forehead is lit up by laser sights from several sniper rifles trained on him.

 

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July 11, 2013 · 11:34 am

Let cameras into court

By Christopher B. Daly 

As I recently argued, we the people deserve to have cameras in all our courtrooms (except maybe juvenile court) and our legislative bodies.

The latest case in point: the appearance in U.S. District Court in Boston yesterday by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing case. Radiating out from downtown Boston, millions of people have a keen interest in this case, and they all have a right to see this defendant. We have a right to hear him say “Not guilty.” We have a right to observe the performance of the government parties — the prosecutors, the judge, the guards, etc. We have the right to watch our government.

Instead, what we get is a chalk sketch like this one:

Suspected terrorist Margaret Small/AP

Suspected terrorist
Margaret Small/AP

We can do better, and we the people deserve better. 

If anybody knows of a good argument for continuing to ban cameras from federal courts, please leave a comment.

 

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April 22, 2013 · 9:31 am

CNN gets it wrong

By Christopher B. Daly 

In his column in today’s New York Times, David Carr analyzes CNN’s self-inflicted wound caused by wrongly reporting the arrest of a suspect in the Marathon bombing case. In doing so, Carr makes some of the same points I made here last week in this post. The problem is how to gather news while the public is watching.

There’s no real answer, of course, except for everyone to do better.

CARR-articleLarge

 

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