Fix the Court Presses for Access

Fix the Court, a group that has been pushing the Supreme Court to televise oral arguments, had cameras outside the court Tuesday to record the folks who were waiting for a seat to a potentially historic argument on gay marriage, according to a YouTube video.

"People should have access to what the government is doing," said one person who said they had been camping out for days to try and get a seat. Another said that as a school teacher, they did not have the money to pay a line-sitter.

“The justices’ very act of keeping their supposedly ‘public’ proceedings private to all but roughly 200 pairs of eyes is embarrassing to the institution and quite insulting to the American people, thousands of whom have been waiting years for today’s case to be heard by the high court," said Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court. "As the justices continue to hear cases that are of great importance to our democracy, let’s hope in subsequent terms they heed the nation’s call for transparency and televise their hearings.”

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.