FSU - Supreme Court team makes the law easy to watch
By Dana Peck
Special to the Florida State Times
Florida State President Sandy D'Alemberte has made history as a longtime crusader for opening courtroom doors to television, and now he has steered FSU into a history-making project that lets viewers all over the world tune into action in Florida's highest court.
FSU is transmitting live coverage of debate on urgent issues in Florida's Supreme Court to the Internet and television stations throughout the state, and recording the oral arguments for classroom lessons.
"It's a form of worldwide broadcasting and publishing," said Patrick Keating, the director of broadcasting at WFSU. "That's pretty mind-boggling."
Whether in Reykjavik, Iceland, or the Florida Everglades, viewers on the Internet may watch the exchanges between lawyers and Florida's seven justices. Those arguments have led to court rulings on the death penalty, abortion, assisted suicides, and the rights of newcomers to the state.
Television watchers in Florida have also seen the court action as it happens on their local cable TV stations.
WFSU staff, many of them students, are in charge of producing the Supreme Court broadcasts.
From a make-shift control room high above the court, "Gavel 2 Gavel," as the production is called, is piped to FSU's broadcast center, where crews add graphics, identifying the speakers, for example.
The program is simultaneously transmitted to the Internet and cable television stations, and recorded on videotape. There are plans for the recordings to be edited into lessons for elementary grades through post-graduate studies.
"We think that the information available through broadcast and cablecast and web pages can be fashioned into incredibly good teaching materials," said D'Alemberte.
Chief Justice Gerald Kogan announced that his priority as chief justice was to make the court more accessible to the public.
Kogan had been disturbed by a survey indicating that most Floridians couldn't name the three branches of government and were staggeringly unaware of how the court works and what importance it plays in their daily lives.
D'Alemberte offered FSU's expertise to turn Kogan's priority into reality. Within months of Kogan's and D'Alemberte's partnership, students and staff at WFSU were performing the technical tasks of televising the court action.
"A lot of work remains, but our first foray into television and netcasting on the Internet has shown great promise as a way of opening our courthouses to Floridians," Kogan said in November, during the week of the first broadcasts.
FSU is asking the Legislature for money for operations and permission to continue free use of the state's telecommunications satellite.
"I think that there are good reasons for this educational purpose to be supported, and I am very optimistic," said D'Alemberte.
To get a look at the partnership, click on WFSU's web site: http://wfsu.org.