While the RDU Airport Authority's lawyers continue defending the airport ban on newspaper vending racks, RDU has installed Redbox DVD vending machines in its passenger terminals.
Maybe they'll bring in some money to help defray RDU's legal bills -- more than a half million dollars -- in the newspaper case.
RDU says its ban is reasonable because newspaper vending boxes would pose security risks, impede passenger flow through the terminals, degrade airport aesthetics and reduce airport authority revenues from shops.
Apparently the big Redbox units are OK on all those points.
A 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in March upheld a federal judge's ruling in North Carolina that RDU's news rack ban is unconstititional, a violation of newspapers' First Amendment right to disseminate the news.
Airport officials are pressing their appeal, awaiting word on their motion to have the full 13-member appellate court consider the case.
Before RDU filed its most recent appeal, the airport had paid its lawyers $503,000 in public funds. If the airport loses, it also will be required to pay legal bills of more than $400,000 for The News & Observer and three other newspaper companies that, so far, are on the winning side of this fight.
Redbox customers pay $1 a day to rent DVD movies. RDU says travelers can rent the movies to watch on their flights - near Gate A24 in Terminal 1 and Gate C7 in Terminal 2 - and then return them at RDU or to Redbox units at other airports.
Bruce Siceloff reports on traffic and transportation. A News & Observer reporter and editor since 1976, he took over the 
