Lewis "Scooter" Libby's trial, which opened last week, brings more than just the possibility of a sitting vice president testifying in a criminal trial. An organization known as the Media Bloggers Association (MBA) obtained two seats for bloggers out of the 100 set aside for the media in what is undoubtedly an overflowing courtroom.
According to a Washington Post article, after "detailed talks" between the president of the MBA and U.S. District Court officials, the court decided, "public awareness of court proceedings could be enhanced" by the attendance of bloggers. The two seats will be rotated among MBA members, including a documentary filmmaker and a freelance writer with a politically oriented blog.
Sheldon Snook, the administrative assistant to the court district's chief judge, told the Post, "Bloggers can bring a depth of reporting that some traditional media organizations aren't able to achieve because of space and time limitations." He also noted some bloggers could bring additional expertise to covering the trial.
The Post article also indicated an opinion of blogs, seemingly widely held by the traditional media, might justify the idea of credentialing.
The common journalistic practices of verifying facts, seeking both sides of a story and subjecting an article to editing are honored mostly in the breach. Innuendo and rumor ricochet around the Internet as blogs link from one to another, at times making defamatory voices indistinguishable from the many others involved in this experiment of free expression.
Snook's assessment seems more accurate than the newspaper's view. Even though neither of the bloggers mentioned appear to have a legal background, they have experience in public policy matters and the like.
That said, when I covered the state and federal courts as a wire service and daily newspaper reporter, most of my knowledge came from The Reporter and the Law by Lyle Denniston, the Baltimore Sun reporter who has covered the U.S. Supreme Court for decades. While Denniston's book is a superb resource for anyone wanting to understand the workings of the justice system, blawgers (law bloggers) undoubtedly can provide insight and expertise that non-lawyer reporters cannot.
At the same time, I would guess that in 99 percent of all trials, bloggers would have no problem attending. They would simply go and watch like any other member of the public (although "live blogging" or using a laptop in the courtroom may be subject to court restrictions depending on such things as noise levels or concern that material not presented at trial might get displayed on the laptop). After all, press rights of access to court proceedings are no greater or less than those of the public.
While MBA should be commended for helping gain blog access to a trial in which seating is limited, part of the WaPo story, if accurate, is disturbing. It says MBA's president wants to help create "an elite tier of bloggers." Admittance to this group would result from being credentialed by the MBA (which admits members only on recommendation of other members) and agreeing to adhere to its ethical standards. Those credentials would "win them access to news and sporting events, advance copies of new books for review and entrance to advance screening of movies." There are two problems with this concept.
Article comments
1 - Marcia L. Neil
Say, is it just me or has Tabloid Column stopped taking comments on any days except the present? How can we relay tips?
2 - Marcia L. Neil
Give your tips through www.radoknews,com!
3 - Robert Cox
Tim - I posted this in the comments section on your blog and have asked Eric Olsen to foward you my email but to reiterate, your post/article is incorrect with regard to the aims of the MBA.
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You wrote “While MBA should probably be commended for its efforts, part of the WaPo story, if accurate, disturbs me. It says MBA’s president wants to help create “an elite tier of bloggers.’”
Your qualifier “if accurate” suggest you have considered the possibility that this line from the WaPo story may be incorrect. You would be right. Of course we are NOT trying to create “”an elite tier of bloggers”. This does even make sense when you consider that there is ALREADY an elite tier of bloggers and that “elite tier” had nothing to do with the Media Bloggers Association other than that some of those “elite tier” bloggers are members of the MBA.
You can read all about this on my blog (Words in Edgewise) or on the MBA home page (mediabloggers.org), but the short version is that the exact OPPOSITE is the case. We are trying to create opportunities that are open to ALL bloggers.
Think about it. Many of the “elite” bloggers today do not need an association to help them gain access to something like a high profile federal trial. Andrew Sullivan can gain access via Time magazine. Glenn Reynolds via MSNBC. Jeff Jarvis via The Guardian.
The people who need help with the type of access we created for the Libby Trial are the non-elites (if I can use that term). And, in fact, most of the bloggers participating in our “coverage” of the Libby Trial fit this description.
What has confused some people, including folks at the WaPo, is that our policy at the MBA is that bloggers join after meeting the basic requirements described on our web site (see the “Membership” link). We don’t call them this but you can think of them as “regular” members of the MBA.
There are some opportunities we have developed where the third-party involved (such as the federal courts) has some additional requirements. The members who are interested in any given opportunity are told of any additional requirements and can then choose whether or not to meet those requirements or not. Some bloggers elect to meet the additional standards and participate. Some don’t. The choice is entirely their own.
That is not CREATING AN ELITE-TIER. It is the opposite of that. Our policy is that ANY blogger who joins the MBA is eligible to meet the same standards as any other member, including those considered “elite-tier” bloggers, and gain access to any event or opportunity on an even footing.
In the case of the Libby Trial, every single MBA member that asked to participate either as a credentialed blogger or as contributor has been included. To accomodate demand, we simply capped the number of days that any blogger could request (4 days) so that there were enough slots to go around based on a reasonable assumption (that the trial will last 6 weeks).
As any blogger who meets our fairly simple membership requirements can join the MBA, and as any member can participate in any opportunity, this is as egalitarian as it can be and far, far better than leaving opprtunities solely to those with inside connections such as the so-called “elite-tier” or “A-list” bloggers.
If you have some ideas on we could make the process even more open and more fair we would certainly welcome them. Just know that we share your concerns and find the idea of creating elite-tiers of bloggers to be silly.
Robert Cox
President
Media Bloggers Association
4 - D'oh
An interesting bit to ponder, here.
On one hand, you have the public, bless their black, flabby little hearts, involved in citizen-journalism via blogs...on the other, you have credentialed media which gets better access than the public in some instances.
I just don't see any problem with news outlets or agencies like this MBA, credentialing bloggers so they can get a higher level of access equal to the press. How can this be a bad thing if done above board.
Take the case last year of Gannon/Guckert and Talon's access inside the WH press room?
He did NOT receive his press credentials in the traditional manner, because the House tossed him out and did NOT certify him, but the WH did.
With an outside agency(or more) doing the credentialing, you know where folks are from and who they represent, rather than allow interested parties to stack the deck with shills.
Everybody , stand up...question authority, find the facts...make up your own minds, talk about it... and bring the Noise!