Editorial: With synagogue shooting trial unfolding, Pennsylvania and federal courts need to reevaluate position on cameras in the courtroom

The courtroom sketch is an attempt to capture a moment with the strokes of charcoal, the lines of a colored pencil and the shade of some oil pastels.

It is the intersection of art and a specific kind of journalism. It is a valuable tool that blends information and craft. But it is also an art form that exists because another one often is banned.

You wouldn’t know it to watch some television shows, but a lot of courtrooms don’t allow TV cameras — or any cameras, actually. Whip out a cellphone for a quick snap, and there will be swift and immediate action. In some courthouses, devices may even be confiscated before entering.

Pennsylvania generally doesn’t allow photography or video in state or county courtrooms. There may be exceptions made for certain proceedings, but that’s up to the judges. It creates a patchwork of rules that is strange in a courthouse, a place built on setting precedent and changing what is permissible.

But then there is the federal court, where there is no budging. The “taking of photographs, recording, broadcasting or televising” is not allowed, per court order.

If you want an example, look to the Robert Bowers trial in the federal courthouse in Pittsburgh. Bowers faces 63 counts of crimes related to the October 2018 killing of 11 people and injuring of others, including police officers, at the Squirrel Hill synagogue where the Tree of Life, Dor Hadash and New Light congregations worshipped.

It is a story important to Pittsburgh, to Pennsylvania and to the nation. It is a story important to the Jewish community and to people of faith everywhere. It is meaningful in the context of conversations about gun violence and about polarized political messaging.

Transparency should be part of that. But instead of seeing the reality of Rabbi Jeffrey Myers’ emotional testimony, we see the interpretation of it via courtroom sketches. Photography and videography are also about art and journalism’s marriage, but they are more about capturing a moment than recreation of one.

Courts have valid concerns about the intrusive nature of cameras. Those are easily addressed via controls and restrictions that other states use, including having a single pool camera utilized by all news outlets and silencing shutters. No one is using film cameras that have to click loudly anymore.

Important court moments have been caught on film, from the sentencing of Adolph Eichmann for war crimes in Israel in 1961 to the 1994 murder trial of O.J. Simpson in California to the 2022 trials of the police officers convicted of George Floyd’s death in Minnesota.

The Bowers trial should be seen, not just interpreted.

Pennsylvania and federal courts need to reevaluate their positions on cameras.