A federal judge ruled that no electronic devices of any kind — including television news cameras — were allowed in the Miami courthouse where former President Donald Trump was arraigned Tuesday. Still, CNN found a way to get updates to reporters and on the air.
CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy claimed in his Reliable Sources newsletter that the network — at the behest of senior coordinating producer and Miami native Noah Gray — called a former teacher that leads the television production program at Palmetto Senior High School and asked if the teacher knew of any students available to work in the courthouse Tuesday.
Several students were brought in to work with reporters Hannah Rabinowitz and Tierney Sneed.
According to Darcy, “As the hearing unfolded and developments transpired, Sneed and Rabinowitz jotted down their reporting on notepads, tearing off sheets with urgent news, and handing it to one of the students. The students then ran the reporting to one of their classmates who was standing by at one of the courthouse’s only two pay phones.”
“In all my years of field producing, never have I been involved in an operation as complex as this literal game of professional telephone,” Gray said.
CNN was part of a media coalition that included NPR to ask the federal court to allow news cameras in the courtroom. However, Judge Jonathan Goodman argued that “allowing photographs would undermine the massive security arrangements put in place.”
