Too Far?

I have often wondered at what point does the local and national media's right to know cross the line of possibly impeding the prosecution of a case?

I don't have the answer for that but it has been on my mind a lot lately.

The city of Ocala where I live is so small  that we don't  really have a local station, there is Fox 51 but I think it's a station only in name. Most of our "local" stations come from Orlando. And Orlando is the basic area of where the biggest case in the country right now began.

It's only been two days of the actual Casey Anthony court case and I am already tired of the gavel to gavel coverage, which is being broadcast by five different stations. I only remember CNN covering the OJ case live, so this is that X's 5.

But my questions about how coverage of this case  really began about two months ago.

When the judge announced that he was going to move the court case out of Orlando the station I watch for news, WESH 2, began an investigation to try to find out where the judger was moving the case to.

I did/do not get why WESH thought it was so important to find that out.  The reporter, I think it was Dan Billows, even went so far as to actually try to get the judge's aide to tell him where the trial would be moved to.  I thought that if they did find out where the case was being moved to that could hinder the possibility of getting a fair trial.

There was even a perfect example for why the movement of the case should not have been known. For those who may not know, during the pretrial jury selection phase a woman (I didn't get her name) shouted out during the proceeding that Casey Anthony not only killed her daughter but was also responsible for the death of others.

I could easily see that if where the case was going to be moved to there could have been numerous incidents like that or even the possibility of  someone who thought Ms Anthony was definitely guilty finding their way on the jury.

Tonight on the news it was reported that a Grandmother and her grandson haven't been seen in two days. I had zero problem with them showing their pictures during the entire report. But did they really have to try to get all the details of what went on before the police were done with their investigation? And did they really have to speculate about things that they said the police wouldn't confirm.

Personally, I believe the news should give out as little information as possible until the police feel they are able to release details.  If it hasn't happened yet, I can see the day coming where a defense attorney could get  a legitimately guilty person acquitted of the crime because the news was irresponsible in  their coverage of the case.

And that would be the day when I know for sure the media went to far.