GSB Vol. 17, NO. 6, Pg. 24. 21st Annual Georgia Bar Media and Judiciary Conference.

• Author: by Stephanie J. Wilson

Georgia Bar Journal

Volume 17.

GSB Vol. 17, NO. 6, Pg. 24.

21st Annual Georgia Bar Media and Judiciary Conference

GSB JournalVol. 17, NO. 6April 201221st Annual Georgia Bar Media and Judiciary Conferenceby Stephanie J. WilsonOnce again, attorneys, journalists and judges gathered to observe panel discussions involving hot topics centered on the First Amendment. Each year, this ICLE event provides attendees the opportunity to listen to and participate in discussions on a wide variety of issues.

This year's conference began with the panel "While the World Watched: How Georgia's Bar, Media and Judiciary Performed in the Troy Davis Drama." By the time Troy Davis was executed in late September 2011, the whole world was watching Georgia's bar, media and judiciary. Most media accounts included as boilerplate the statement that seven of the nine witnesses who testified against Davis at trial had recanted; doubts about those seven were harder to find in news stories. Prosecutors vigorously and successfully countered the "recantations" in courts of law, but they did little to challenge them in the court of public opinion. The worldwide anti-death penalty movement filled the breach. Five months after the execution, panelists Spencer Lawton Jr., former district attorney, Chatham County, Savannah; Stephen B. Bright, president and senior counsel, Southern Center for Human Rights, Atlanta; Alyson M. Palmer, Fulton County Daily Report, Atlanta; and Bert Roughton, managing editor, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, met to discuss their respective roles in the drama. Hank Klibanoff, Emory University Journalism Program, Atlanta, served as moderator.

The session that followed was titled "Changing Justice Coverage: A View from the Trenches." This panel served as an exposition and discussion - by those doing the covering-of the ongoing transformation of reporting on the justice system and the courts. Don Plummer of Social Media Matters, LLC, in Atlanta, served as moderator. Panelists Greg Bluestein, legal affairs reporter, Associated Press, Atlanta; Grayson Daughters, digital content editor, Fulton County Daily Report, Atlanta; Beth Karas, correspondent, "In Session," CNN, Atlanta; and Leonard Witt, executive director, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, Center for Sustainable Journalism, Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, provided their...