Outside View: Media presence vital in the upcoming trial of Bryan Kohberger

Ada County is about to get its third major national-interest trial in a little more than two years.

And while the county’s experience with the trials of Lori Vallow Daybell in 2023 and Chad Daybell in 2024 were valuable, the upcoming trial of Bryan Kohberger promises to be of even higher interest.

And based on a recent media briefing call with District Judge James Cawthon, the Ada County Courthouse could turn into a zoo.

More than 100 people were on the call with Cawthon, including local journalists, such as reporters from the Idaho Statesman and the Associated Press, as well as national reporters from ABC, Fox News and NBC.

National journalists were asking about parking for reporters and TV trucks, reserving areas for live shots in front of the courthouse and allowing tents outside the courthouse during those hot summer days once the trial begins in early August.

One reporter even suggested allowing scaffolding to accommodate all the TV live shots.

Compared with the Vallow and Daybell trials, we ain’t seen nothing yet.

To Cawthon’s great credit, he emphasized that however big this trial is, the goal is to continue to allow the normal operations of the Ada County Courthouse, with as many as 300 other trials going on during the Kohberger trial.

Media access

issue arises

But we have a serious concern regarding media access, a concern that doesn’t seem to be getting enough attention from the courts.

The Idaho Statesman has signed on to a letter to the court from several media outlets requesting that the court allow a pool still photographer in the courtroom, that the court reserve at least one seat for a pool text journalist, that the court make individual camera feeds available from the livestream that’s being provided by the court and that the court consider lifting the nondissemination (or gag) order during the trial.

We support all of these requests, but in particular, we see a serious flaw with how the court has proposed to handle seating.

As proposed now, the court will use a daily reservation system in which the public will have to request a seat in the courtroom by logging in at noon each day for a spot the following day.

As one reporter put it, it’s like buying a concert ticket.

Legitimate reporters will be subject to the same first-come, first-served system as the general public.

That’s no way to ensure journalists have a seat at such an important trial.

In fact, it’s entirely possible that the system results in no actual reporters in the courtroom at all.

Even worse, the system actually hamstrings reporters who might be in the courtroom working at noon, at the courthouse filing stories, going live with a report, filing out of the courtroom at the time the system goes live or simply working on another story at that moment.

The reservation system favors, as the media’s letter to the courts points out, those with free time on their hands and the fastest internet connection at that moment.

The court will argue that reporters can watch the provided livestream of the trial, which is great, but frankly is inadequate and is a pale facsimile to watching the trial live, where a trained journalist can see jury reactions (courtroom cameras will not show jurors) or reactions from the gallery where victims’ and the defendant’s family will be sitting.

The best solution at a minimum is to allow at least one pool reporter, who is one trained journalist from a legitimate reputable news outlet, who will report from the courtroom – with a guaranteed seat – each day to provide a written account that is shared with every news outlet.

Even better would be a pool reporter along with three or four guaranteed seats for journalists that could be determined by a random lottery system.

Whatever system is chosen, the bottom line is that for such an important trial as this, it is vital that the media have a presence in that courtroom each day to relay the events to the public.

And the current system doesn’t guarantee that.

“Journalists cover the courts on behalf of the public,” according to the letter sent to the judges handling the details of the trial. “We provide an impartial eye into a co-equal branch of government, and that work helps to protect democracy by ensuring a well-informed citizenry.”

We couldn’t agree more.