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Saturday, July 07, 2007
Courts - "Gavel to Gavel (to Gavel to Gavel) Coverage"
Sunday's NY Times looks at the TV judges. A sample from the feature by Alessandra Stanley:
Unheeded gripes are what keep therapists in business, inflame bloggers and clog the dockets of small claims court. And they are one reason that both “Judge Judy,” the top-rated court show now celebrating its 11th year on the air, and “The People’s Court,” which first surfaced in 1981, are so enduring.From later in the article:They help explain why CBS Television Distribution, the syndicator of both “Judge Judy” and “Judge Joe Brown,” is contemplating yet another courtroom show with Larry Seidlin, the judge who weepily adjudicated the dispute over Anna Nicole Smith’s remains.
In September Sony Pictures TV, home to “Judge Hatchett” and “Judge Maria Lopez,” plans to unveil “Judge David Young,” who will be the first openly gay arbiter in the genre — a new niche for an old format. There are at least as many of these so-called syndi-court judges as there are Supreme Court justices, and they are better known than their brethren in Washington. The ratings for “Judge Judy” have slipped, but she is the chief justice of her field and the star of one of the Top 10 syndicated shows, with about 6.4 million viewers, just behind “Dr. Phil,” who has 6.6 million. (Oprah Winfrey is still queen with 8.3 million.)
The judges are real but retired. And petitioners are recruited with television ads, as well as in small claims court where producers hunt down cases suited to the cameras. The chosen sign a waiver agreeing that the television arbitration is final and cannot be pursued elsewhere, though in some cases rulings have been overturned. The awards do not exceed $5,000, the small claims limit in most states, but money is not the real object. It’s campy, hammed up summary justice, but it feeds the viewers’ vicarious craving for told-you-so retribution
When “The People’s Court” was canceled in 1993 after a 12-year run under Judge Joseph A. Wapner, it seemed the allure had dissipated. Then the O. J. Simpson trial and the rise of Court TV quickened an appetite for small-screen justice. The show came back in 1997 with Edward I. Koch, the former New York mayor, presiding; then Judge Jerry Sheindlin, husband of Judge Judy, took over. At the moment the gavel is held by the no-nonsense Judge Marilyn Milian.Great writing!The disputes in these shows are minor, the facts are pared to sound bites, and even the best-coached defendants are self-conscious and stilted. But raw emotions seep through nonetheless.
Recriminations vary in scope and intensity, but the litigants all seem to come from the same social pool: almost all are ambassadors from a nation of have-nots, working class or unemployed, overweight and in poor health, many of them without insurance or connections. Socialites suing their plastic surgeons have better ways to seek amends. It’s Michael Moore populism, and the cumulative effect is depressing, a tableau of broken homes, bad luck and desperation snatched from “Miss Lonelyhearts.”
Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 7, 2007 09:49 PM
Posted to Courts in general