Category: Media

Courtroom devices get different state treatments

Media
by Eric P. Robinson

While almost all state trial courts allow some level of still and video camera coverage of court proceedings, the rules on usage of modern communications devices and techniques – blogging, tweeting, texting and emailing using cellphones, tablets and other devices – are a wild patchwork of policies which vary from state to state, courthouse to courthouse, and often even courtroom to courtroom. An example of this is in two wildly diverging policies adopted in late 2012 in Kansas and Illinois’ Cook County.

Massacres in the media: Journalists discuss challenges of covering mass death

Media
by Sam Robinson

Charles Lee “Cookie” Thornton walked into the Kirkwood (Mo.) City Council one night in February 2008 and opened fire on city officials. Police who arrived on scene within minutes shot and killed Thornton, but not before he had killed six people and wounded two others. One of those wounded was Todd Smith, a reporter covering the City Council meeting for the Suburban Journal, a St. Louis-area publication. Smith, who was shot in the right hand, found himself catapulted from his reporting beat into the spotlight of national media. Smith recalled the events of the night for a group of 40 who attended a recent News at Noon event titled “Massacres in the Media” that was sponsored by the St. Louis-area Society of Professional Journalists.

Outside looking in provides perspective on school shooting reporting

Media
by Eileen Byrnes

For many years I was on the reporter’s side of collecting news. When the massacre at an elementary school occurred in my hometown of Sandy Hook, Conn., I no longer was a member of the press, but rather a resident watching reporters, videographers, radio press, international writers and Internet bloggers descend on a hamlet that has one stoplight. (Editor’s note: This is a preview of a story that will appear in the next print issue of Gateway Journalism Review.)