Coffee with Crawford | Why the view of the news sometimes gets sketchy

Most of the time, Coffee with Crawford is about sports. But occasionally, it reflects what everyone is talking about — and often, that isn't sports. This is one of those times. The Crystal Rogers murder case is a major story — one with deep Kentucky roots and national reach. A small slice of its first trial caught my attention this morning.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- You don't expect a mixed media drawing to lead a news cycle in 2025.

But that's how the trial of Steve Lawson — the first in the Crystal Rogers murder case — began this week. No cameras. No livestreams. No gallery of phones raised to the sky. Just a room, a judge, a jury and a sketch artist — chalk in hand, eyes scanning the room for a moment to capture.

Lawson is charged with conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with physical evidence in the 2015 disappearance of Rogers, a mother of five from Bardstown whose case has haunted Kentucky for nearly a decade.

The case has drawn national attention. But the judge, Charles Simms III, barred cameras from the courtroom. No audio. No video. No photos. Just pencil and paper, documenting the proceedings the old-fashioned way.

I do understand.

We live in an age of total access. But it's a fact of life: The camera changes things. When you're not just playing to a room — but to the world — it alters the entire atmosphere.

Attorneys perform. Witnesses clam up. Judges tread more carefully. And jurors — private citizens asked to do a public duty — can find themselves turned into unwilling celebrities, dissected online for a glance or a frown that was never meant to be broadcast.

In most public arenas, a little spectacle comes with the territory. But a trial like this isn't showbiz. A woman is dead. A man's freedom is on the line. The work in that courtroom is too serious — and the stakes too high — for many judges to risk turning it into a sideshow built for social media snips.

That said, I still wonder: Why not release a daily transcript? Why not allow a pool photographer to take periodic, silent stills? That wouldn't be intrusive. It would be a public service — and it could actually promote accuracy in reporting.

In fact, WDRB — along with several other Louisville media outlets — formally petitioned the judge to allow a single pool camera into the courtroom under strict, respectful guidelines: no livestream, no juror faces, no disruption. Just a way for the public to witness a public trial. During a time of eroding confidence in the legal process, transparency has merits. The motion was denied.

So instead, we get the sketches. In this case, the court has turned to Bowling Green artist Sydney Young.

We have them because we've seen what happens when things spiral. The tradition goes back nearly a century, to the Lindbergh baby kidnapping trial in 1935, which turned into a full-blown media circus. Reporters packed the courtroom — some with fake credentials. Flashbulbs popped and interrupted testimony. Witnesses (and everyone else) felt intimidated. It was so disruptive many judges banned cameras altogether. And what remained was the sketch pad: a quieter, slower form of documentation that aimed to preserve dignity without sacrificing access.

But it's not just a drawing. It's a visual filter. A moment interpreted by a human hand and an artist's eye.

We've seen recently how much power that can hold. A year ago, a courtroom sketch of Donald Trump — head tilted back, eyes closed during his trial — set social media ablaze. No one could say for sure what he was doing, but everyone had an opinion. The image spoke. No one knew what to believe. In that case, with a presidential candidate before a lone judge, a live camera would have been the clearer public service.

There are times when the public view should be more than, forgive me, sketchy.

Quick sips

-- Back to sports, I've got to confess, I've wondered how a sketch artist would deal with times when we reporters are locked out of proceedings. Locker rooms. Closed practices. Even executive sessions. I won't hold my breath.

-- Indiana University has brought back an old mascot hoping to breathe a little new life into its athletic marketing effort. But a bison? Seems a little bit forced. Actually, it seems a lot forced. This isn't like resurrecting the dunking Cardinal logo or an old Wildcat mascot from years past. I know a segment of fans has been lobbying for it. But when the rest of the country is scratching its head, maybe the idea needed a bit more thought.

-- The SEC meetings are ongoing in Destin, Florida. But the stir Greg Sankey kicked off with comments to reporters hangs over all of them. My thoughts on those remarks are here.

The Last Drop

A quote from Sankey ... 

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