A handful of Indiana judges will soon allow still and video cameras into their courtrooms as part of a pilot program lifting restrictions on news media coverage of trials.\nIndiana Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard signed the order Tuesday in Evansville authorizing the program, which came in response to requests from the Indiana Broadcasters Association and the Hoosier State Press Association.\n"We think that in general the public benefits by knowing more about what happens in its courts," Shepard said before signing the order.\nThe 18-month program will involve eight trial judges throughout the state who have agreed to allow news cameras and audio recorders into their courtrooms.\nShepard said the order could allow for journalists to better "tell the story of what happens" in courtrooms. The order also could allow for real-time Webcasts of court proceedings that are not already closed to the public under state law or Supreme Court rules, he said.\nRandy Wheeler, news director of radio station WIKY in Evansville, has been an advocate for opening Indiana's courtrooms to media cameras and microphones for years.\nWheeler said cameras should be allowed in the courtroom amid the digital media age.\n"It's fantastic for the people of the Hoosier State to see and feel and hear the emotions of the courtroom that can't be captured by the written word," said Wheeler, who is also president of Indiana Associated Press Broadcasters Association. "The tools that we have used in the electronic media have shown their impact in the Kennedy assassination and more recently on 9/11."\nUnder the order, which justices approved by a 3-2 vote, one video camera, one still camera and up to three tape recorders will be allowed at a time.\nThe project will begin July 1 this year and last until the end of 2007, and members of the media must agree to share coverage under an arrangement approved by the trial judge in advance.\nSteve Key, general counsel for the newspaper industry group Hoosier State Press Association, said the public has a right to know what happens in its courtrooms.\nIt's not at all similar to what popular television shows as "Judge Judy" depict, he said.
\n"We feel this is just a continuation of a trend," Key said. "The media has not been seen as an enemy of the courts but as a window to open up the courts"
