Did Donald Trump fall asleep in court? Why the trial is posing challenges for reporters and the public

Analysis by Oliver Darcy, CNN

New York (CNN) — Did Donald Trump fall asleep in court?

As the first criminal trial of a former American president commenced Monday, The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman delivered a stunning report from the Manhattan courtroom. Trump, she reported, “appeared to nod off a few times,” with his mouth “going slack and his head drooping onto his chest.”

Haberman, it goes without saying, is in a class of her own when it comes to reporting on Trump. When Haberman reports news about the Republican frontrunner, readers can take it to the bank. And her observation about Trump’s apparent low-energy demeanor was corroborated by other reporters who confirmed that the defendant’s eyes were shut for lengthy periods of time.

“He looked like he was nodding off and at one point in a pretty true tell that he was falling asleep, his head nodded down and then he sort of jolted back up at one point,” The NYT’s Susanne Craig also said on MSNBC.

But the Trump campaign later denied the former president had fallen asleep during the hearing — an obvious problem for a candidate who has made the “Sleepy Joe” moniker a key attack line — claiming that the mid-trial snooze never happened.

“This is 100% Fake News coming from ‘journalists’ who weren’t even in the court room,” a Trump campaign spokesperson later insisted.

On this particular matter, the stakes are not very consequential. Nevertheless, the episode underscores the information vacuum that has been birthed by the lack of transparency into the case. The Trump campaign forcefully denying Haberman and other reporters’ accounts quickly created two versions of events for people at home to choose to believe: Trump or Haberman. And it’s a safe bet that much of the country would (wrongly) place its trust in Trump, despite his propensity to lie.

The public was not permitted to see the hearing with its own eyes, as cameras have been barred from the courtroom, in keeping with a New York state court rule.
Instead, Americans, unable to watch the historic proceedings play out, will have no choice but to place its trust in Haberman and a small group of reporters selected to sit inside the courtroom to observe the high-stakes trial.

While photographers are only briefly allowed in the courtroom at the start of the day, there will be no undeniable proof one way or the other to surface. The only visuals from inside the courtroom will be provided by a sketch artist tasked with depicting the range of expressions and emotions during the unprecedented trial.

The lack of cameras in the Manhattan courtroom is not new. Federal courts have long barred the filming of proceedings, much to the chagrin of news organizations and advocacy groups that have pushed for the judiciary to increase transparency. One of the concerns has been that by welcoming the public into the courtroom, cases will transform into public spectacles, similar to the O.J. Simpson trial in the mid-1990s. But there are a lot of holes in that argument. And, given the historic nature of the Trump trials, with a former president staring down dozens of criminal charges, news organizations have requested that exemptions be made. But thus far it has been to no avail.

As a consequence, a select few reporters will need to be the eyes and ears of the country, providing accurate representations of what transpired behind closed doors. While a handful of journalists are granted access inside the actual courtroom, most others are actually stationed in an overflow room, where they can watch a video stream of the proceedings and file dispatches.

The setup effectively ensures that there will be no shared reality of the unprecedented case as members of the public will have news from the trial filtered through the lens of whichever media they choose to consume. That fragmented media environment is where Trump also thrives, given that he has a powerful propaganda machine at his disposal, with outlets like Fox News willing to do his bidding, no matter how dishonest it is.

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