LOS ANGELES – It’s their job to explain law to the masses.
But do legal talking heads well . . . talk too much?
They do. Or at least they talk too much with too few facts, according to two Los Angeles law professors, who have written lengthy law review articles on the impact of legal punditry.
Now, the University of Southern California’s Erwin Chemerinsky and Loyola’s Laurie Levenson – themselves no strangers to cameras and legal spin – have proposed an ethics guide aimed at muzzling out-of-control talking heads.
“There are no rules to this, they’re being made up as we go,” Chemerinsky said yesterday. “It’s [legal commentating] such a new thing too. Not one of us ever took a class on how to be a legal commentator.”
Chemerinsky and Levenson have written that all legal commentators could easily meet these three standards:
*Comment only on facts disclosed in trial documents and testimony.
*Discuss the issues with neutrality, advocating on both sides when at all possible unless you’re clearly marked as an advocate.
*Explain with context and nuance, avoiding win-loss metaphors in scoreboard commentating.
From O.J. to impeachment, the TV culture of legal spin has taken on a life its own.
Networks each have their own contracted legal analyst, cable stations have regular legal shows, and of course there’s Court TV – a cable outfit made up of nothing but legal talking heads.
As shown during the hours and hours of punditry during President Clinton’s impeachment trial, lawyers were often pitted against each other in rhetorical food fights where legal discussion fell to left-vs.-right politics.
“[Legal pundits] got suckered into being advocates,” Levenson said. “It was just people voicing their political opinions.”
The style and identification in which the legal commentators do their work also matters, Chemerinsky said.
For example, the USC prof said he appreciated the television work of GOP attack dog Ann Coulter during the impeachment proceedings, but was less thrilled with fellow Clinton basher Jonathan Turley.
“She was clearly labeled as an advocate for the GOP,” Chemerinsky said. “But there were times, I thought, that Jonathan Turley was pretending to be neutral . . . and presenting what he was saying as the law.”
Whether Chemerinsky and Levenson’s call for talking head restraint will make any impact, is unknown. What’s clear is that legalspeak on television, radio and in print is probably here to stay. And with that, the L.A. law profs said, should come some responsibility.
“These are just voluntary standards,” Chemerinsky said. “Legal commentators can do enormous good educating people about the law.
“But they can also do enormous damage when they give inaccurate information or lead the public to believe what they’re saying is the law when its not.”