No video, no problem. How cable news covered Supreme Court arguments on Trump's eligibility

Well, that was weird.

Cable news networks went all in with their coverage of arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday over whether Donald Trump should be kicked off the ballot in Colorado.

Of course they did. As practically every talking head with a microphone pointed out in the run-up to the arguments, it’s potentially the Court's most direct intervention in an election since Bush v. Gore in 2000 — and may also not be its last one in the 2024 presidential race. Legal experts, legal “experts” and instant-expert social-media hacks of every political stripe agreed that the Court in its questioning went out of its way to look for ways to avoid keeping Trump off the ballot.

Did the Supreme Court make a decision today? Nope

Law professor Jonathan Turley said on Fox News that the justices were hitting Jason Murray, the lead attorney for the Colorado voters trying to remove Trump from the ballot, from all sides at one point. “I imagine he wanted to do everything short of pulling the fire alarm," Turley said. The justices are expected to rule in the case, probably within a few weeks.

So far, so regular, right?

Wrong. While it sounds like the usual coverage of a major news event, it wasn’t. Because sound is all we got: CNN, Fox News and MSNBC covered the nearly two-hour arguments from start to finish, without commercial interruption — and without any video.

And it was pretty great.

Yes, without the “vision” component of “television,” they just went with live audio. Of course, they couldn’t just show a blank screen or put up the peaceful “moments of Zen” YouTube TV shows between commercials during regular programming. Instead, they showed still photos of whoever was speaking — which justice, which attorney, rotating that with the occasional photo of the entire Court. Sometimes CNN put the justices’ photos in what looked like a giant tic-tac-toe board, with the eight who weren’t speaking in black and white and the one who was highlighted in color.

Maybe you have to be into that sort of thing, but I found it fascinating. I don’t know how many times you’ve listened to arguments before the Court — this makes once for me — but given what was at stake, it didn’t just feel important. It was important.

It must be. It was on TV (sort of).

More seriously, the networks’ decision to carry the audio live was a reminder of how momentous the cases involving Trump really are and how they may shape the country. You don’t just give up half of what makes people tune into your network in the first place without good reason.

This was good reason.

Over the course of the arguments, the Justices' personalities emerged, essentially creating characters in what could have been a radio drama. Neil Gorsuch has a powerful, deep voice that makes him sound like the host of a conservative podcast. At times, Sonia Sotomayor sounded like an angry aunt losing her patience. Samuel Alito just sounded angry. Chief Justice John Roberts sounded like he just wanted everything to go smoothly. Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the two newest justices and the youngest, indeed sounded younger — their questions and their voices were energetic and crisp.

CNN and MSNBC cut away from Trump's rambling reaction

Yes, it was a little heavy on technical aspects — for example, when George Conway on CNN started to break down “office” and “officer,” a major element of the Justices’ questioning — Jake Tapper playfully struck him down, saying he was dipping into legalese. Which he was, but so had everyone else for the previous couple of hours.

Live audio of arguments before the Supreme Court has been available to the public since the pandemic, and recordings of the oral arguments have long been available. But if any network has covered it the way they did Thursday’s arguments, I haven't seen it, and I watch more cable news than anybody ought to.

Once it was done, the networks reverted to their usual methods — panels of experts talking, mostly. Everyone agreed that things look good for Trump. He showed up in a live shot, and rather than talk about the arguments, he launched into a rambling campaign screed. (He eventually talked a little about the case, but more about how the country is falling apart or something.)

As CNN cut away after a few minutes — the network would go back and forth with Trump’s comments — Tapper laughed and said, “I think we’ve gotten all the legal analysis we’re going to get out of President Trump.” Conway laughed so hard he actually choked.

In other words, back to normal. Too bad.

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Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. X: @goodyk. Subscribe to the weekly movies newsletter.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: How cable news covered Trump Supreme Court arguments without cameras