NEW YORK (AP) — The New York accents of court reporters reading testimony. A juror’s facial expression. And tea leaves – lots of tea leaves.
The jury deliberations meant tense and ultimately boring hours of waiting for lawyers, journalists and others in the Manhattan courtroom where former President Donald Trump’s hush-money trial is being held.
The same goes for television networks covering this case, except they have hours of time for viewers. Instead of moving on to something else, they have largely stayed close to the courthouse.
That means no sign, fact or opinion is too small to ignore.
NO CAMERAS IN THE COURT MEANS MORE TIME TO FILL
Despite New York State rules banning cameras in the courtroom, television news networks have focused almost exclusively on the case while the court is in session. Since the case began in mid-April, Fox News Channel’s daytime viewership is up 15% from last year, while MSNBC is up 17% and CNN is up 19%, according to the Nielsen company. That explains the reluctance to turn away.
“They can come up with a verdict between now and however long it takes,” Newsmax reporter Christina Thompson said Thursday — the safest of hundreds of televised predictions since the jury began considering evidence.
The phrase “tea leaves” – a clichéd reference to predicting the outcome of an event based on signs that may or may not mean something – has been heard more times than on the Bigelow factory floor.
“Trying to understand what the jury thinks is the pseudoscience of all pseudosciences,” says CNN analyst Elie Honig. “You can, however, draw conclusions.”
With that he read some tea leaves. Several analysts interpreted the jury’s initial request for testimony they wanted to hear again as a positive sign for the prosecution, in that it seemed as if they were exploring the roots of the alleged crime.
But MSNBC analyst Danny Cevallos warned that there could be a very different interpretation — that a juror leaning toward acquittal might have remembered something from the testimony that reinforced that view, and wanted fellow jurors to hear it.
TRYING TO PUT HERSELF IN THE SHOES OF JURY HOURS
On Fox News, former prosecutor and Congressman Trey Gowdy said he would look at jurors’ eyes and expressions during such readings to get an indication of who finds that information most important.
Some network time was spent digging into the details of what those jurors heard, including reading the same transcripts to viewers.
At one point, MSNBC’s Jose Diaz-Balart marveled at the idea of 12 citizens joining together to investigate facts and determine the fate of a former president. “I’m still in awe of this system,” said Diaz-Balart, whose family emigrated from Cuba a year before his birth.
It was different at Fox, where attorney Phil Holloway complained about a “rogue judge” trying to “weaponize” a trial to influence the presidential election. Fox and Newsmax carried Trump’s live comments Thursday morning about a “rigged” trial, while CNN and MSNBC ignored them. Analysts at outlets aimed at conservative viewers often downplayed the case against him.
“I happen to think there is almost nothing but an advantage for Donald Trump,” said Fox analyst Ari Fleischer, former press secretary to President George W. Bush. “If he is convicted, I think most people will reject it, or it’s already built into what they expect from Donald Trump. But if he is acquitted or there is a hung jury, that will boost him like a rocket.”
Over at Newsmax, commentators took the time to criticize liberals at MSNBC, particularly analyst Andrew Weissmann’s comment that he had a “man crush” on Judge Juan Merchan for the way he handled the trial.
Networks regularly showed clocks on screen to indicate how long jurors had deliberated. But it seemed almost pointless: At one point, MSNBC jurors were estimated to have thought about the case for an hour and 45 minutes less than NewsNation.
The tension, said MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace, was “like waiting for a new pope.”
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David Bauder writes about media for The Associated Press. Follow him up http://twitter.com/dbauder.
