NPPA Blogs

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