The Society of Professional Journalists is urging a federal appeals court to protect journalists’ First Amendment right to photograph, record, and redistribute images of court hearings that are livestreamed for remote viewing.
In a legal brief joined by the National Press Photographers Association, SPJ asks the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to reverse a federal district court ruling from Michigan, which found that there is no constitutionally protected right to create and publish screenshots of court proceedings — even if the courts themselves televise the proceedings.
Although judges have been given latitude to exclude photojournalists from the physical courtroom on the grounds that cameras might be noisy or distracting, the same principle does not apply when a journalist, or other spectator, is recording the hearing in the privacy of a home or workplace, the brief argues: “By self-publishing the audio or video of a proceeding, the judge has conceded that there is no harm in letting the public listen and watch.”
