 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
         |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| navigate: home: magazine: winter 1999: article | |
|
Veteran journalists discuss media coverage of Supreme Court By Deborah A. Benedetti | ||||||
|
Reporting on the activities of the U.S. Supreme Court is a challenge for journalists, Charles Bierbauer, senior Washington correspondent for CNN, told participants of the Communications Law Institute sponsored by the Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment and Penn State’s College of Communications. Held at The Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, the institute offered a forum for journalists, lawyers and educators to discuss First Amendment issues, according to Robert D. Richards, associate professor of journalism and law at Penn State. Richards founded the Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment in 1992 and serves as director. Bierbauer, a Penn State alumnus, said, “Covering the court is frustrating, but it’s a test of your creativity. The justices don’t do news conferences or explain their decisions. What they tell us [the news media] is ‘Read the briefs.’ You can put their words on a TV screen, but I’ve found you have to figure out other ways to tell the story.” He began covering the Supreme Court for CNN during the 1997–98 court term following nine years as CNN’s White House correspondent during the Reagan and Bush administrations. Previously, he hosted CNN’s “Newsmaker Saturday” program for 10 years. As a foreign correspondent for ABC News, he reported on the former Soviet Union and West Germany. Bierbauer earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in journalism and Russian at Penn State. Lyle W. Denniston, reporter for the Baltimore Sun, has covered the Supreme Court since 1958 and is known as the “dean of Supreme Court correspondents.” He previously reported for the Washington Star and taught at Georgetown University Law Center and now serves as a legal commentator for C-SPAN. The College of Communications has appointed him an adjunct professor for its Communications and Democracy Semester in Washington, D.C., program. Denniston noted the Supreme Court has cut its caseload nearly in half in the last 15 years, from 155 cases in 1982–83 to 89 cases in 1997–98. “As a result, the court is far less a central factor in American public life than it used to be,” he said. Denniston predicts few ground-breaking decisions, such as those ending school segregation (Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 1954) and affirming abortion rights (Roe v. Wade, 1973), during the 1997–98 Supreme Court term. One area where the court is focusing its attention is sexual harassment law. He said the justices have agreed to hear four cases involving sexual harassment issues. The court ruled on two such cases in the past. In the interim, lower court interpretations of sexual harassment issues have created chaos, he added. Other invited speakers for the second Communications Law Institute included L. Lin Wood, founding member and partner of the Atlanta law firm Wood & Grant; Sam Klein, partner in the Philadelphia law firm Dechert, Price & Rhoads and a leading First Amendment attorney; and Charles Kelly, partner in the Pittsburgh law firm Kirkpatrick & Lockhart. Discussion topics dealt with reality TV, the First Amendment in cyberspace, and arts and entertainment. Richards and Clay Calvert, assistant professor of communications and law and associate director of the Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment, were co-directors of the institute. Continuing Education’s Conferences and Institutes staff assisted in planning the institute. An outreach program of the College of Communications | |||||
| ||||||
