March 11th 2010 / Duck football players in court / Masoli, James, Embry plead guilty



Video by KVAL/Pool, Photo by Chris Pietsch/The Register-Guard


Video by KVAL/Pool, Photo by Chris Pietsch/The Register-Guard


Cameras (finally) in Lane County courts

By Carl Davaz

Register-Guard photographers Kevin Clark and Chris Pietsch made history on March 12 when they became the first still photographers permitted to take photographs during Lane County courtroom hearings.

The newspaper had been trying to gain “cameras in the courtroom” access in Lane County for decades. Despite the Oregon Supreme Court's 1999 adoption of revisions to the state's Uniform Trial Court Rules permitting still and video cameras in courtrooms, Lane County judges continued to bar the use of still cameras.

That changed on March 11 when Director of Graphics Rob Romig submitted a request to the Lane County Circuit Court to photograph three hearings, one pertaining to a murder case and two others involving University of Oregon football players.

The Register-Guard photographers were designated as the pool still photographers, Clark for the Richard McAnulty hearing and Pietsch for both the LaMichael James and Jeremiah Masoli hearings. KVAL was designated to coordinate the video pool.

“Pool” responsibilities require that the designated photographers provide other media with still photographs or video.

The photographers, along with news and sports reporters and the Web team's Micky Hulse, handling video from KVAL, filed live breaking news updates through the day at registerguard.com.