NCJ Number
159980
Date Published
1995
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This essay argues for more news coverage of significant civil proceedings and provides some guidelines for journalists who report on such cases.
Abstract
Although criminal cases typically receive heavy coverage in both print and electronic media, important civil cases on employment discrimination, sexual harassment, product liability, surrogate parents, right to die, prayer in schools, abortion, and prison overcrowding are being ignored. This indifference toward civil cases is largely due to the difficulty of identifying and selecting civil cases and the mistaken view of many news editors that civil cases cannot hold the interest of the reading and viewing public. As the media administrator for the Federal court experiment in Philadelphia, the author searches for cases of interest for the local and regional stations. He has encouraged stations to cover unsensational cases that address significant issues for society and individuals. In following civil cases in Federal court, the local stations found they were covering many of Philadelphia's most politically newsworthy disputes. Some suggestions for journalists who cover civil cases are that the positions of the attorneys on each side be researched prior to trial and that the reporter read all the court papers that have been filed. Other guidelines recommend interviewing all witnesses, knowing the case's legal context, profiling those involved in the case, and examining the aftermath of the court's decision.