Judges and Journalists Head Back to School
by Christine Stuart | March 1, 2007 6:38 PM
Posted to Courts
| Media Matters
Photo courtesy of the Judicial Branch Web site
The Judicial Media Committee, a group of judges, journalists, and attorneys created by Supreme Court Justice David Borden’s Judicial Access Task Force met for the first time Thursday to discuss its mission as mediator between the judicial branch and the news media.
In his opening remarks Borden (pictured) said the committee’s mission is to “improve communications and relations between the third branch and the fourth estate.” The committee creates a way for the judicial branch and the press to facilitate communication, in a way that ultimately will benefit the public, Borden said.
According to the recommendations in the Judicial Access Task Force’s report, the Judicial Media Committee should be charged to form a quick-response team comprised of judges and reporters to be available to review questions and disputes over judicial proceedings the same day a dispute arises. This sub-group of the Judicial Media Committee will be known as the Fire Brigade. Borden said the Fire Brigade, “is not designed to be a court of appeal in any way. It is intended, instead, to be a form of prompt and informal mediation between court, including its clerical staff, and media.”
This sub-group will have “no power, but the power of persuasion,” he said.
Superior Court Judge David Gold and Journal Inquirer Reporter Heather Nann Collin stressed the informality of the brigade process. Collins said the group would not be “frontline responders.” She said a reporter with a dispute would be required to call the Judicial Branch’s External Affairs Office first and then if the dispute continued a member of the External Affairs team would call a member of the brigade. She said if a member of the media were continually denied access to records in a particular court then that may be something the brigade would handle.
The brigade would only handle phone calls from the media or the judicial branch. Collins said it wasn’t “comfortable taking a call from the public.”
Meanwhile the Judicial Media Committee will form two subcommittees one to schedule events and bring in speakers to talk about issues and another to create a survey to distribute to the justices and the media.
One initiative “that is most intriguing is the idea of sending judges and journalists back to school,” Borden said. “A ‘Law School for Journalists’ could provide practical information that would be useful to journalists in their daily work covering the courts. I also suggest that a counterpart—’Journalism School for Judges’—could certainly be developed and become part of the judicial education program that is offered to the judges at the annual institute in June and throughout the year.”
The idea may sound strange at first, but its been done.
The Knight Foundation had funded a Master of Studies in Law degree program at Yale Law School, but after 28-years it dropped the program. The program existed until 2004 and was created to improve the media’s coverage of legal issues.
For more information on the Judicial Media Committee click here to visit its Web site.
Comments (4)
Posted by: Guest | March 1, 2007 5:13 PM
Scenario - this top heavy approach to access, this committee, decides wrongfully that the reporter shouldn't have the record or the access, or doesn't feel like it is a request it should back passionately.
In response, the reporter files a mandamus. As evidence, the judge has the brigade's record of luke warm advocacy.The judge reads the tea leaves, and if so needy of 'guidance,' knows its OK to deny the request because the tea leaves spell it out.
Meanwhile, the committee is a whole new layer for corruption and clubbiness to hide, fester and grow. Who is going to watch dog this watch dog brigage? How much are taxpayers going to pay to underwrite it?
Scenario 2- external affairs now has a brigade to pass the buck to.
Discussion: The judiciary is going to have to sell this hard, fill in all these blanks. Why should the press walk into a dark room it can't get out of and where it might just meet a disaster? Because Justice Sullivan hides a decision or judges got divorced on a super-secret docket or because judges won't let reporters take notes in court?
Question: is this brigage going to evaluate a request by asking questions such as why someone wants to see something? This would be unconstitutional if so.
This brigage only begins to be palatable if it is required to advocate for every request equally. And then only if intiating a request or complaint is not mandatory for the press.
the mandatory part is totally out of the question.
Really, the judiciary has to answer way more questions about this. This came out of a task force that had to debate notetaking in court and almost couldn't get that issue out of subcommittee. There isn't a lot of faith or trust among the press in the jurisprudence that was exhibited in and came out of that task force.
Posted by: cody | March 1, 2007 8:44 PM
In the call to create this Judicial Media Committee it called for a members from both the print and electronic media. Apparently this doesn't mean "new media" this means the "broadcast media" ie television reporters. There was no representation of new media or radio. Let's see we had people from the Journal Inquirer, Associated Press, Channel 8, and the Hartford Courant. No Internet and no radio reporters or editors have been involved in this process since the beginning. I'm sick of hearing the cameras in the courtroom debate. CT allows cameras in the courtroom the dummies with the cameras never ask to get in.
Standing outside Hartford Superior Court prior to Ken Krayeske's court appearance on Jan. 31 I asked two of the broadcast media if they called the court and asked if they would allow them to bring their cameras in the courtroom. "They don't allow cameras in the courtroom," one of them said. When I told them, "Yes, they do," they said "they never let us anyway." My advice to the entertainment, I mean broadcast media, is don't walk back to your truck and sit there, walk into court, even if it's without the camera. Reporters can walk into the courts wihtout cameras and gather information to relay to their viewers, but they don't. They go sit in their truck until they see other reporters exit the court. How come print media doesn't need a camera to do their job? The real battle is in the access to court records and documents and if the debate isn't going to be focused there it's not worth having.
Posted by: Guest | March 2, 2007 5:16 PM
why would any reporter utilize this committee?
I think Borden is the cat's pajamas. I love him, but I am wary of this committee and this so-called "requirement" to call external affairs. This could represent an erosion of important rights.
Funny that to get something you have to give something away. You can't file the expensive mandamus that makes you wait because you failed to initiate the brigage process where you are forced to submit your possibly confidential pursuit of a story to the infinite wisdom of reporters working for other, competing outlets. Very clever to make it a requirement instead of optional, when making it optional would have been perfectly OK. The only one who pays by making it mandatory is the press. These guys would make great washington power brokers.
And this all because the judiciary is apparently so rife with tyrants and unherdable cats that it can't do the right thing by itself.
Are we our brother's keeper or its watch dog?
We are its watch dog.
This is babysitting the judiciary and sacrificing our duty to our readers to do it.
Posted by: Guest | March 2, 2007 5:16 PM
I hate to say it, but I have to agree for the most part. They better get behind print and web on the next push to thank everyone for supporting their cameras.
This committee now -- If a reporter is working on a confidential story, why would they blab about it to a reporter from another paper who happens to sit on the committee?
What's wrong with filing a mandamus? Make them free whenever they involve access to hearing or record.