William Kennedy Smith’s criminal trial and the birth of CourtTV

In 1991, JFK’s 30-year-old nephew, William Kennedy Smith, was accused of raping a woman named Patricia Bowman at the Kennedy estate in Palm Beach. The ensuing trial coincided with the birth of CourtTV, and its “gavel-to-gavel” television coverage changed the media landscape forever. We’re joined by Dr. Paul Thaler, author of The Watchful Eye: American Justice in the Age of the Television Trial and The Spectacle: Media and the Making of the OJ Simpson Story, to talk about the ethics of cameras in the courtroom, the legacy of the William Kennedy Smith trial, and our current true crime landscape.

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