*Note: The following was contributed by Zach Nelson, news director for Performance Radio in Huron, who requested expanded coverage for the July 1 closing arguments in the Edwin Thompson trial.
I have been asked to share a summary with my dealings regarding the first approved request for expanded coverage of trial court proceedings in South Dakota. My situation was quite different in that I was trying to cover two trials in two towns at the same time. I was quite fortunate in that one trial was pleaded out at the last minute.
I started by making a written request. And by written I mean typed out and mailed through the post office. I did not engage in e-mail correspondence until the contact had been established. In State V. Kruger (Kingsbury County) I received a written response twice from Judge David Gienapp who was hearing the case. The first letter informed me that my still photo request was denied. The second was to inform me that Judge Gienapp would allow audio only, per rules adopted July 1st.
I was urged to contact Dexter Gronseth, KELO-TV assignment editior and South Dakota Supreme Court media coordinator. The media pooling was originally going to take place in DeSmet, however since that trial did not happen due to the plea, the pool was eventually moved to Huron for State V. Thompson (Beadle County).
Sitting in the final motions hearing before Thompson, I was present when the issue of expanded coverage was brought before the court during the hearing. I witnessed both the defense and prosecution say they would be fine with audio and stills. I was informed via e-mail by Judge Gienapp that Kruger would not go to trial. I immediately called the KELO team and told them that Kruger got pleaded out but if they wanted to come to Huron, Thompson was still on the table. All of this was contingent on the Thompson case making it to Friday (July 1, the day the new rule went into effect allowing expanded coverage.)
Prior to the Kruger plea I went to a local audio shop and purchased a 50-foot audio cable with a 1/8 inch mini-plug on one end and a modified end with an “RCA Style” A/V plug. Before I knew I would have KELO in Huron with me I was making provisions to run that single audio cable to a location in the front pew where I would have quick access for disconnecting the audio from the recorder if directed to by the judge.
We used my 50-foot cable to go from the speaker amplifier and wireless microphone interface to the pooling equipment. My 50-foot cable reached just beyond a side door on the court room. KELO did not have a fitting to connect their XLR fittings to my mini-plug so Dexter called back to Sioux Falls and had an engineer fashion a cable to connect my cable with his. We proceeded to tape down any cables that could have been a tripping hazard.
While finishing the audio set-up Judge Jon Erickson asked why a video camera was not requested. I explained how on the radio, video didn’t matter to me. He said a camera would be fine with him if the lawyers agreed, which they did. A camera was then set up in a location so as to not flim jurors.
One issue we found is that volume of the amplifier needed to be turned nearly all the way up. That also increased the volume coming from the courtroom speaker. It caused feedback issues when lawyers would get to close to the ceiling speaker if they moved around a lot. As far as effort, I assisted Dexter and his team as much as I could because they had the equipment to make it all happen.
Otherwise short of spending about 40 bucks on that 50-foot cable it was a fairly easy procedure. I was able to connect our cell phone remote equipment into the mult box and send the sound back to the station. From the radio side of things we set up back at the station to use an air studio with streaming capacity that we don’t use often so as to not interfere with other stations, then had the announcer on KIJV put up the streaming feed instead of a live feed off the phone to the air board.
One problem this caused was not being able to hear on-air programming prior to going live. I did not have direct access to a monitor, so there were some segments of dead air while waiting for things to start because I couldn’t see where they were at. Otherwise I think things worked well and sounded good. You do lose something on the radio side when you have to crank sound up so much but I had people tell me the radio thing sounded good.
Closing thoughts…
–Make your requests to include everything! KELO is the only place that seems to take an interest in having the equipment to properly pool mulitple media outlets, so if they are gonna help you set up pooling, do them a favor and at least TRY to get video. I will include video in all of my future requests. REMEMBER if they don’t grant it you still have audio.
–I would suggest it become a “gentlemen’s agreement” the organization who makes the request and gets approved should be the organization that sets up and coordinates media pool set-up. For example. I made the request for the Thompson trial. I contacted KELO to help. Other outlets should contact, in this example me. If say station WXYZ makes a request and it’s approved and you want a piece of the action, call WXYZ, not KELO, not me and most certainly not THE COURTS. Once a case is open to the media it’s up to the media to work together. The courts don’t want to hear from us once access is granted. The only contact made to the courts, in my estimation, should be to find out who is doing the pooling. Let the media have the headache, not the courts.
–Make your request as early as possible, this will give you time, if it’s granted, to work through any sound issues. It will or at least should eliminate any last minute scrambling.
–DON’T send your request to anyone other than the Media Coordinator for the Circuit you are in (*Note: This is the court administrator in each circuit, listed on the UJS web page.) Don’t go shipping off requests to the individual parties. One piece of paper is easier to track than 100, not to mention the likelihood of upsetting the court players you need to make the request happen. In other words “Don’t piss off the judge, prosecutor and defense attorney.”
I am far from an expert but I HAVE been through this rodeo before and I am willing to assist any media organization that wishes to obtain expanded coverage of a trial.
Sincerely
Zach Nelson
News Director
Performance Radio, Huron SD
Phone 1-605-352-1933
Cell 1-605-350-2038
Fax 1-605-352-0911