I think it makes the trial, which after all is a serious event affecting at least one person's life, into a carnival. I deplore what has happened to American journalism in the last ten years. I think we're becoming dangerously close to show business. In many ways they cause the judicial system to lose its dignity. But they aren't the ones to blame for what is happening.
Lawyers always do extreme things.
The real problem is the atmosphere that we in the media have created around public events. We all know that if you dig deep enough around most public officials that you will find corruption, incompetence or silliness. Either involving the person you're covering directly or close to them. We need to keep digging for that stuff, but we over-estimate the ability of our public instutitions to maintain public order. So we need to maintain some.