EDITORIAL
Cameras need not embarrass justices

One of the most important — even majestic — aspects of American government is also one of the least understood: the proceedings of the United States Supreme Court.

In an interview last week, two Supreme Court justices, Sandra Day O'Connor and Stephen Breyer, defended the court's practice of banning television cameras from its chambers.

It's a shame that this outdated attitude persists, and it seems to center on a fear that such expanded openness might make the justices look bad. "I think a brief excerpt of a televised segment of oral argument is never going to be a full explanation," fretted O'Connor. No one explains to viewers, added Breyer, "the depth of significance of what's going on."

That's always a danger, but television at its best effectively mixes snippets of tape with informed reporting. The same danger exists in today's newspaper reporting, which condenses for busy people legal arguments and decisions that sometimes approach book length.

"Keeping cameras out to prevent people from getting the wrong idea," argues the Washington Post, "is a little like removing the paintings from an art museum out of fear that visitors might not have the art history background to appreciate them."

Lawyers will continue to read the briefs and the decisions to get the whole picture. Sure, making accessible a branch of government that is almost painfully obscure risks oversimplification of its processes for those viewers who today know nothing at all of them. That's a risk worth taking.