All Rise

I recently read an article about a woman who was fined for contempt of court for wearing inappropriate clothing - in this case, shorts short enough to reveal her ethnicity - I leave that expression up to your imagination. Suffice to say, a defendant appearing before a magistrate "sets a tone" for how they expect to be treated - or how they feel about the courtroom - in how they dress. For a man, that would be to traditionally don the suit-&-tie combo. For a woman, it's something demure, at least.
It's a good thing that the magistrate was female, because otherwise the article would have gone on about the sexism or misogyny of the magistrate, or courtrooms, or the court process in general. Perhaps it would have picked on the elitism of the bench, anachronism of the ideals represented by those who sit in judgement ... it really doesn't matter, because the article was only about getting a reaction out of the reader - not even sympathy for an opinion (or the defendant), but a reaction against ... something, anything.
In juxtaposition, there was probably an article about what a Kardashian or a Princess was wearing - & how you should look like them if you want to be noticed - & you don't, so why would we bother noticing you? Somewhere between irony & hypocrisy, such articles only fill me with disgust.
The intention of newspapers should not be to make money through exposing advertising to its readers, expanding its readership to charge more for its advertising, or expanding its advertising to bombard & confuse those who don't read all that well. They should be there to inform. It's a simple idea - the media are a channel (by definition) to information that most people don't have direct access to - preferably truth. Opinion comes into it, but that should be considered, from knowledgeable, experienced, communicative individuals with some level of altruism. Anything else is noise - the space between the adverts.
In this case, the opinion - because it was no more than that - attacked a member of the judiciary for doing their job - & doing it well.
The judgement end of the legal system is full of trained, experienced professionals who try very hard to get at the truth, generally make decisions for the good of society, & priding themselves on both their impartiality & their independence from, say, the media & politicians. Historically (for an English system), they represent the Monarch's justice - an impartiality born of having no agenda & no possibility of gain from any decision. Sure, that's just an ideal, but it's one we all hope for & sort of believe in. It's the kind of ideal that brings calamitous repercussions down on the head of anyone who subverts the course of justice, as it should.
Magistrates have an expectation - not through being out of touch, but through being in the system - that the courts are a meaningful process that should be treated with the utmost respect across society. Courts are not just the place where the criminal class meets its just desserts, they are the place of austerity & independent judgement where society is held up to the mirror to find its own faults - whether it's homicide, burglary, or speeding offences. Those who sit in judgement are the "Picture of Dorian Gray" - they show up the ugliness that we, daily, tend to ignore.
In this case, a magistrate has said quite clearly that society does not appreciate its courtrooms being treated like a back alley where smokers congregate. A newspaper - one that equally treats society with a modicum of respect - should applaud that magistrate's dealing with the individual, & in fact point out how we, sheep-like, are more likely to follow the vain, the stupid, the anti-social, & those who think that bearing their backside in a courtroom is normal.
That magistrate has shown us an expectation that we, as members of society, must step up to.