How do blogs fit with traditional media, legal scholarship?

Byline: David Ziemer

Are new media, like blogs, destroying Supreme Court coverage in the traditional media, and supplanting traditional legal scholarship, or are they complementary? Two panels -- one comprised of members of each -- discussed the changing landscape of legal coverage and scholarship during the Seventh Circuit Bar Association's annual convention at Milwaukee's Pfister Hotel on May 7. Joan Biskupic, the Supreme Court reporter for USA Today spoke at length about what the traditional media can do that blogs can't do and aren't intended to do -- provide the facts in an unbiased way, and help build a historical record. Unlike bloggers, the Supreme Court reporters are in Washington, attend the oral arguments, talk to the parties, and even cover the protests. Nevertheless, she acknowledged the shortcomings and threats to traditional Supreme Court journalism. Less than 10 percent of law students she speaks with read a traditional newspaper -- they either read traditional coverage online, or go straight to commentary in the blogs. In addition, few newspapers even have a full-time Supreme Court reporter anymore. Only five newspapers, plus AP and Reuters News Services, have them, as opposed to 40 papers when she began covering the court in the late 1980s. All three networks used to have a reporter and a sketch artist, as well, but now only one has a reporter. Traditional media is also constrained by the need to write for non-legal readers, while bloggers can assume a sophisticated audience; bloggers can also be more entertaining and sharp. Nevertheless, providing an unbiased account of what the court held is an important function that needs to continue, she said. Joseph D. Kearney, dean of Marquette University Law School agreed that the traditional media performs this function well, and that longtime reporters, like Biskupic and David Savage from the L.A. Times, get the law correct and understand the context. He distinguished them from the editors who write op-eds, who, he asserted, have no sensitivity to prior precedent or context, but only understand which special interest groups benefit and lose. The panelists agreed that traditional media coverage has a future, even if it will dwindle in importance because of new alternative media. Savage noted how easy it is for people to filter their news through like-minded people with blogs, and that it is important to have a balanced source that can act as a "green zone in the middle," with no...