Service or Spectacle?

Few theses are so likely to unite U.S. editors and publishers in righteous fervor as the notion that, justice being the public's business, the press has a right to exercise its constitutional freedom in covering court trials.

The sort of freedom for which they have long been arguing was recently extended to newspapers and radio stations in a Mississippi murder trial. The details of the case were particularly spicy: the defendant was a 20-year-old college student accused of killing his 31-year-old married mistress by wrapping a coat hanger around her neck. Given near-complete freedom of the courtroom by the presiding judge, newsmen tape-recorded testimony with equipment so sensitive that it could pick up the whispered conversations of the defense attorneys.

Within an hour after witnesses left the stand, a network of 14 stations was playing the juicy testimony over the air. Nightly each station had a 3 1/2-hour trial roundup for the benefit of working people who had missed the daytime broadcasts. By the end of the trial, with the defendant found guilty, public feeling had been so aroused that one lawyer commented last week: "I'm afraid that the radio and newspaper coverage of this trial will make it impossible to find a jury anywhere in Mississippi in case a new trial is ordered.'' Such criticism led to a delicate question: When does the press stop performing a public service and start creating a public spectacle?

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