Not a great start for public access.

Two orders issued Monday night in connection with Tuesday’s arraignment of Donald Trump — one from the chief judge of the Southern District of Florida and the other from the magistrate judge running the arraignment — will make informing the public about what happens on Tuesday more difficult and less transparent.

Chief Judge Cecilia Altonaga issued an order barring all reporters, in the main courtroom or in the overflow room, from having any electronic devices in the courthouse Tuesday.

Additionally, Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman denied a media coalition's request for same-day audio of Tuesday’s arraignment.

By preventing no-wifi laptop or even airplane-mode phone usage by journalists at the courthouse, even in the overflow room, and then also refusing to allow same-day audio to be released after the fact, these judges are not allowing simple steps that would help better inform people and minimize the possibility of misinformation.

Sure, Tuesday is not the most important moment — and could be a rather news-lite event, aside from the historical nature of this arraignment — but the media should be aggressively fighting for access to these proceedings, in a reasonable way that does not prejudice the defendant. And this is the first day, post-indictment, for them to begin to do so. The media, in this situation, is partially representing the public more broadly — by seeking to provide them with as much access as is reasonably possibly to what is, for the most part*, a public proceeding.

* = One caveat here, given the classified information at issue and, accordingly, the role that the Classified Information Procedures Act will play in the case.