The National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) joined with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and a coalition of media organizations in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to allow live audio and video coverage of the Court’s announcement of its decision in the three cases involving proposed health-care legislation.

The proposal, if accepted, would allow the public the opportunity to contemporaneously hear the resolution of an issue that has proved to be one of the most visible and important in the recent history of the Court.

“It is unfortunate given the advances in technology enabling unobtrusive audio-visual coverage of judicial proceedings throughout state courts across the country that the media must still implore the Supreme Court to consider allowing live coverage in such an important case,” said Mickey H. Osterreicher, NPPA general counsel.

Barring live video coverage, the media coalition has asked in the alternative that the Court allow immediate, or at a minimum, delayed release of the Court’s own audio recording of the announcement.  While some members of the Supreme Court have traditionally feared that recordings could negatively affect the integrity of the oral arguments and discussions between attorneys and justices, proponents of the media coalition’s proposal say that allowing recording of the announcement of the decision avoids that conflict while giving the public up-to-date results for the much-publicized cases.

“I commend the Court for allowing the timely release of audio recordings in other high profile cases but I hope that in this case, which impacts upon every American, the justices would allow the live broadcast of its opinion as it is read,” Osterreicher added.

The announcement, which will impact the millions of Americans who are currently uninsured, is expected to come by the end of June.

The letter was signed by the following media organizations:

• ABC News
• A. H. Belo Corporation
• Allbritton Communications Company
• ALM Media, LLC
• American Society of News Editors
• The Associated Press
• Association of Alternative Newsweeklies
• Atlantic Media, Inc.
• Bay Area News Group
• Belo Corp.
• Bloomberg News
• Cable News Network, Inc.
• California Newspaper Publishers Association
• CBS Broadcasting Inc.
• Chicago Tribune
• Consumer Reports
• Cox Media Group, Inc.
• The C-SPAN Networks
• Digital Media Law Project
• Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
• The E.W. Scripps Company
• First Amendment Coalition
• Gannett Co., Inc.
• Hearst Corporation
• Los Angeles Times
• The McClatchy Company
• MPA – The Association of Magazine Media
• National Association of Broadcasters
• The National Press Club
• National Press Photographers Association
• NBCUniversal Media, LLC
• New York Daily News
• The New York Times
• Newspaper Association of America
• The Newspaper Guild – CWA
• The Newsweek/Daily Beast Company LLC
• North Jersey Media Group Inc.
• NPR, Inc.
• Online News Association
• POLITICO LLC
• Reuters America LLC
• The Seattle Times Company
• Society of Professional Journalists
• Stephens Media LLC
• Time Inc.
• Tribune Company
• USA Today
• The Washington Post
• WNET