Vol. 9 No. 12 (December 1999) pp. 550-553.

REPORTING ON THE COURTS: HOW THE MASS MEDIA COVER JUDICIAL ACTIONS by William Haltom. Chicago, IL: Nelson-Hall, Inc. 351 pp.

Reviewed by Jennifer A. Segal, Department of Political Science, The University of Kentucky.

The study of news coverage of the American judiciary is a complicated one. It involves at least three sets of actors -- the judiciary, the mass media, and the public -- all of which have their own motivations, goals, and perspectives. Those who have written about the nature of reporting on the courts know full well how difficult it is to capture the complexity of each of these three actors, not to mention the interaction between them. This partly explains why work in this area is more anecdotal and normative than it is systematic and empirical. It also helps explain why this work is quite diverse but not particularly cohesive or thorough. Written by professors of political science, communication, journalism and law, as well as lawyers, journalists and reporters, the numerous commentaries and studies focus on the different elements of the judicial process, different courts, and different forms of the media. Occasionally they include discussions about the influence of these institutions on the knowledge and attitudes of the American public. Less frequently they offer theoretical insights into the various relationships that contribute to media coverage of the judicial system. Certainly, there is much more theoretical and empirical work to be done on this topic to improve our understanding of these complex institutions and interactions. This point is made clearly by REPORTING ON THE COURTS.

Professor Haltom engages in an ambitious effort in REPORTING ON THE COURTS. According to Haltom, his primary purpose is to teach his readers to be smart consumers of news about the courts. This is a noble goal; indeed, as much of what is reported about the judiciary (which is not as much as it could be) is incomplete and often inaccurate. His lesson consists largely of a review of the literature on the mass media, the judiciary, and the public, but he also includes a more theoretical discussion that highlights different perspectives about these institutions and their relationships to each other. Haltom is thoughtful and thorough. He begins with an introductory chapter that sets out these perspectives (on which I elaborate below) and a first chapter that provides information about the role and power of the courts and the media. The five additional substantive chapters focus on the nature of media coverage of the Supreme Court (Chapter 3), of other appellate courts (Chapter 4), of criminal justice (Chapter 5) and civil litigation (Chapter 6), and of judicial selection (Chapter 7). Available from these chapters is a wealth of information based on observations of and research on the judiciary, the media and the American public. Additionally, in each chapter Haltom suggests a number of testable hypotheses intended to facilitate future research on these topics. To this extent, REPORTING ON THE COURTS may be a

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useful reference for those readers with some background on these topics and those with an interest in doing research on media coverage of the courts.

Despite its ambitious intentions, REPORTING ON THE COURTS has a few important limitations that narrow its impact and utility. As I have already indicated, the book is largely a literature review with the purpose of informing its readers of the various views about and research on media coverage of the judiciary so that they can be better consumers of court- related news. As the chapter titles indicate, his review is thorough; he addresses nearly every element of the judiciary that is reported by the media and that has been the topic of study. Although this may be useful for some audiences, the review tends to be more descriptive than it is analytical or critical. As a result, it does not go as far as it might to contributing to the discussion about the relationship between the media and the courts. There is no argument presented about the relative merits of the various studies or observations of the media's coverage - unless the reader is already familiar with the work discussed, he/she may be unable to evaluate the nature of the relationship between the courts and the media. This limits the book's utility for a lay audience and for undergraduates, both of whom Haltom seems particularly interested in reaching.

This is not to say that Haltom does not present any analytical framework in his book. The second (and related) goal of the book is to provide a "theoretical synthesis" of the existing work (and therefore of the roles and goals of the media, courts, and the public) by highlighting different perspectives of the relationship between journalism and the judiciary. Specifically, Haltom argues that the nature of the relationship should be understood in the context of our expectations about the actors and their interactions. He defines such a context by identifying two perspectives, the Inside-Out perspective and the Outside-In perspective. The first is the optimistic, idealistic perspective of the relationship between the media and the courts; it is based on strict standards for the media (that they are and should be objective and accurate), for judges and their actions (that they are and should be fair, well-crafted, legal), and for audiences (that they are and should be attentive). The Outside-In perspective is more cynical and challenges the assumptions of the Inside-Out perspective; it assumes that the media and judges are not objective but rather play to the audience in a rather dramatic and spectacular or sensational way, and that the audience is inadvertent and not particularly interested. Throughout the book, he highlights their application to the media's coverage of the courts and promotes the message that consumers of the news should be aware of these (and other possible) perspectives when they evaluate and develop expectations about the information they receive about the news.

It is a compelling idea to set up these two opposite perspectives as a way of structuring the discussion about the media and the court. As I noted previously, little theory building has occurred in this literature, and it is good to see attempts at establishing some theoretical organization of the concepts and arguments that have been made. Certainly, in the context of the goal to develop smart consumers of court-related news, this is a good idea -- challenging existing and perhaps predominant norms (represented by the Inside-Out perspective) by proposing an alternative set of

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expectations (in this instance, the Outside-In perspective) is intellectually and politically healthy.

Yet, Haltom's efforts at theory building are very preliminary and are not as instructive as they first appear. In part this is because the distinction he creates between these two perspectives is not convincing. He begins by dramatically distinguishing the two perspectives, pitting them against each other to establish the appearance of two very different ways of thinking about the media and the courts. He then categorizes the literature in terms of these two perspectives, and provides excerpts from arguments made by several different sources that demonstrate each perspective. Although Haltom does eventually relax the distinctions and suggests that the categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive, it is apparent from the outset that they are not truly competing perspectives and so do not offer the kind of insight that Haltom expects they do. This is especially clear from the examples that he provides throughout the book to evaluate the observations and arguments made by scholars, journalists, and judges about the media and the courts. For instance, he uses excerpts from the work by reporter Lyle Denniston (1980) and Professor Chester Newland (1964) as evidence of the Inside-Out perspective (Haltom claims that experts on court coverage are particularly susceptible to this perspective), and the arguments presented by Professors David Paletz and Robert Entman (1981) and Justice Scalia (in Stein 1990) as examples of the Outside-In perspective. Yet, Haltom provides no systematic basis for choosing these examples. Rather, he states that, "the Inside-Out perspective is usually implicit and thus must be ferreted out through close reading and inference."(12). This seems to me an unsatisfactory I-know-it-when-I-see-it method of evaluation. Thus, his choices appear to be completely a result of his own interpretation, and could be easily rebutted by alternative interpretations (including one that identifies BOTH of Haltom's perspectives in EACH of the four examples above) in the absence of clearly defined standards for evaluating the arguments.

Additionally, Haltom only infrequently presents his own evidence to buttress or test these perspectives. Importantly, the purpose of the book is not to contribute a new empirical study of media coverage of the courts. Nevertheless, the absence of such information highlights the deficiencies in the theoretical framework he introduces. In the end, it seems that Haltom simply distinguishes between the ideal (Inside-Out) and the practical and political (Outside-In) conceptions of the role of the media and the court, but does not provide a very convincing or useful method by which we might understand the existing literature, formulate new research projects, or consume news about these institutions.

Moreover, and rather significantly, REPORTING ON THE COURTS is not written as well as it could be. This may be partly a function of trying to reach a number of very different audiences (undergraduate and graduate students, scholars of a variety of different disciplines, and lay people) for whom different writing styles may be necessary. Thus, Haltom seems to be trying to reach a younger and less knowledgeable audience when he writes very conversationally at times -- a little too conversationally for my taste. At the same time, Haltom may be trying to reach a more sophisticated audience when his prose turns more complex (particularly evident when he uses lots of jargon and provides great detail). In the end, it is difficult to get through many of the passages in the book, as they are

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convoluted and confusing. This naturally detracts from the flow of the discussion and makes Haltom's review and theoretical synthesis of the literature difficult to follow.

Haltom's efforts to present an overview of the literature, to inform future research, and to encourage thoughtful and intellectual readers and watchers of court-related journalism are laudable. The primary strength of REPORTING ON THE COURTS is that it highlights the type of effort that scholars and other observers of the media and the courts need to engage in as they continue their research and commentary on these institutions. In the final analysis, however, Haltom tries to do too much for too many - and the result is that REPORTING ON THE COURTS falls short of its goals.

REFERENCES:

Denniston, Lyle. 1980. THE REPORTER AND THE LAW: TECHNIQUES OF COVERING THE COURTS. New York: Hastings House.

Newland, Chester A. 1964. "Press Coverage of the United States Supreme Court." WESTERN POLITICAL QUARTERLY 17: 15-36.

Paletz, David L. and Robert M. Entman. 1981. MEDIA POWER POLITICS. New York: Free Press.

Stein, M. L. 1990. "Scalia Discusses the Press." EDITOR & PUBLISHER 123 (8 September): 16.