The audio-only coverage of the U.S. President, Donald Trump's, temporary travel ban hearing in a federal appeals court was tuned into by more than 2.6 million people. The viewers or rather listeners used cable TV or went online. The temporary travel ban is restricted to people and refuge from seven Muslim-majority countries.
According to Reuters, the hearing lasted for more than an hour and people from around the States listened to attorneys' arguments for Washington State and the U.S. government. The arguments sued to challenge Trump's executive order for imposing the 'Muslim ban'.
In San Francisco, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' three-judge panel questioned the government's attorney on the legality of Trump's order passed on Jan. 27. The ban incited protests and chaos nationwide at airports and even overseas.
The order has banned travelers from Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and Syria from entering the United Stated for a duration of 90 days. As far as the refugees are concerned, they are banned for 120 days. Syrian refugees, however, were banned indefinitely.
The government appealed the executive orders and consecutively, the San Francisco judges heard the arguments regarding the case on Tuesday night. It was aired on all three major U.S. cable news networks, running for a duration of an hour and 15 minutes.
As the hearing was conducted by means of a conference call, only the audio recording was available. On CNN and MSNBC, a combined number of more than 2.5 million people tuned in. 3 million other listeners tuned in to Fox News, to hear segments of the hearing.
The lack of video did not alarm any of those interested. Many even likened the experience to a pre-TV era, with everyone huddling around a radio.
"It was a moment for an important kind of civic education and public engagement in the process of government," Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe stated while giving a play-by-play kind of commentary usually reserved for sporting events only.
