Contempt or Right?

When a Cleveland Press photographer violated the court's instructions last month by taking a courtroom picture of a defendant whom the Press had helped indict, Common Pleas Judge Joseph H. Silbert charged the photographer and two other Press staffers with contempt for "transgressing the dignity and honor of the court [TIME, Sept. 7]." Last week, despite the Press's plea that the contempt citation was an infringement of "freedom of the press," Judge Silbert found the three Press staffers guilty, fined them a total of $700 and costs. While the Press prepared to appeal, the paper said in a front-page editorial that its defense would be based on "the right of the people to know." But' the rival Cleveland Plain Dealer disagreed. Said the Plain Dealer: "Freedom of the press is in no way involved . . . The principle involved here ... is whether a judge has a right to conduct his court in a manner which appears to him to be seemly or whether newspapers are in charge of the courts."

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