Bench-Bar-Media Dialogue - Police, Protests and Press Coverage

Increasingly we are receiving our news from people who are not traditional reporters or affiliated with traditional media organizations. On October 2, CCE addressed the effects of “citizen journalism” on the DC justice system in a thought-provoking public program. Issues explored included:

   
• ·         Taking photographs on federal property, including of trial participants;
   
• ·         Differences between credentialed and non-credentialed media;
   
• ·         Representation of non-credentialed media by legal advocates; and
   
• ·         The relevance of the federal Privacy Protection Act to claim seized journalist materials.

Thank you to the stellar panel, moderated by Patrick Madden of WAMU 88.5, which included: Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the US District Court for DC; Fred D’Ambrosi of WUSA*TV; Arthur Spitzer of the ACLU of the Nation’s Captial; Mary McCord of the US Attorney’s Office for DC; Commander Steven Sund of the DC Metropolitan Police Department; and Mickey Osterreicher of the National Press Photographers Association.

Thanks are also due to CCE Directors and Georgetown Law Professors Sherman Cohn and Susan Low Bloch for their role in having Georgetown host the CCE program. We are grateful to Covington & Burling, Gannett Co., Inc., WUSA-TV and USA TODAY, The Washington Post, and Davis Wright and Tremaine for their generous sponsorship and support of the program.

The year-long CCE Bench-Bar-Media Dialogue Project is underwritten by a grant from the State Justice Institute.

Finally, thank you to the planning committee that conceived of and organized this program: Eric Lieberman of The Washington Post; Arabella Teal; Henri Cauvin of The Washington Post; Ashley Messenger of National Public Radio; Shelly Snook of the US District Court for DC; Leah Gurowitz of the DC Superior Court; and Jack Murphy of the MDDC Press Association.