 FJTN, the Federal Judicial Television Network. The strategy with the media, I set up a meeting with the media. Really didn't have a warning. We knew there was some interest. Had no idea we'd draw six. Fifty-four was about it. He gave someone some advice to prepare for a high-profile case. Such as an after-case. I would say, prepare your team ahead of time so that you're ready for something like this to happen. Often times you don't have a lot of notice. I think we have an obligation as the third branch of government. It's very important that we take every opportunity to show that some of the people coming to the court are working in a good system. Because if we don't, as I said, we really lose legitimacy. Federal Judicial Center, cooperation with the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, presents Public Information and Outreach. The role of the District Clerk of Court. And now your moderator for today's program, Clerks of Court are increasingly asked to play an important role in the court's multifaceted relationship with the media, the bar, the Alain Bob Fagan, a senior education specialist at the Federal Judicial Center. Welcome to today's broadcast on Public Information and Outreach. Today in cooperation with the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, we're going to take a look at some of the key issues and challenges that courts face when asked to perform information and outreach activities. Through discussions with panelists both here in the studio and at our push-to-talk sites, we'll learn about effective practices that individual court units developed to meet those challenges. The court units participating will tell us what works for them. These same practices may or may not be effective for you. That's for your judges and your court to decide. As we saw in the open, the challenges are numerous. We have quite a bit to talk about in just two hours. Our hope is that by the end of it all, you'll have a working definition of public information and community outreach as it applies to the courts. Understand the role of the District Court Clerk in managing the multifaceted relationship with the media, the bar, and the community. Be able to identify successful techniques in working with the media in both high-profile cases and on a day-to-day basis. And finally, to become familiar with effective programs and practices that help promote better understanding among the community, the bar, we encourage you to participate. Ask questions and share your thoughts with us. We've built time into our discussions for your comments. If you are not using push-to-talk today, send us the facts. Our facts number will appear on the screen throughout our discussions. You may send us a note at any time during the broadcast. Our facts form was provided with the downloadable materials on our DCN site. The materials also include many references and websites, plus a roster and program evaluation. Now onto today's agenda. To help define public information and outreach, we're going to start with an interview of David Sellers, the Assistant Director of the Office of Public Affairs in the AO, conducted by my colleague, Judy Roberts. This will be followed by our media relations panel discussion. We'll cover not only high-profile cases, but also daily working relationships with the media. After that, we'll take a short break and then our community outreach panel discussion will focus on both national initiatives and the efforts of individual court units in reaching out to members of the bar, schools, and the community. We'll then provide a short wrap-up at the end. And now to introduce us to the field of public affairs, as I mentioned before, my colleague, Judy Roberts, sat down with David Sellers, the Assistant Director of the AO's Office of Public Affairs to discuss basic definitions and concepts regarding public information, community outreach, and the courts. Hello, I'm with David Sellers, the Assistant Director of the Office of Public Affairs at the administrative office. David, thank you for joining us today. You received many phone calls for information and assistance in many areas, but your office is called Public Affairs. Could you give us a working definition of what public affairs means in relation to the judiciary? Sure, public affairs is the umbrella of media relations and community outreach, and part of it is also public information. But I think it's just as important to understand what it doesn't include, because public affairs in the judicial branch is really very different than it should be. In the judicial branch, public affairs is dignified. It's conservative. It's educational as it's dignified, but it's very polite. I think it's a very different approach than the other branches, but I think it's... You've mentioned three specific areas there, and I'm wondering if we could get some more information on each of them. For example, public information. How would you define that? Public information is probably the broadest concept, but there's a part of public information that flows into media relations, and there's a part of it that's familiar with many of the major areas that you work with are? Sure. You can really divide media relations into two areas. The second in an area that the judiciary is probably a little less comfortable with, but nevertheless engages in from time to time. It's legislation that's important, and it's made this area of work. Nowadays, we worry a little bit about the broadcast media, but not so much. So I think it's important to understand that we worry a little bit about the broadcast media, but not so much, since cameras aren't allowed in federal courthouses. But the electronic media, the web-based... Community outreach and education. Could you tell us more about this area? Sure. Ideally, there is a relationship between the two. Community outreach and education outreaches, as it sounds, a way for the judiciary and judges to become a little closer with their community, like the civic leaders or journalists or other civic groups, whereas education outreaches typically students and teachers. Now, the way we bring the media is... We're looking at these three areas specifically. How important is it for them to be proactive in this situation? Of course, it's going to differ from court to court. Just as many judges say, I never talk to a reporter or I never work with education groups as I've had judges say, boy, this is terrific. We ought to get what's important to get involved because the judiciary has often said is the least trust and confidence is the backbone of the federal judicial system. And in order for people to have trust in the courts and have confidence in them, I think that's really what we do. So by reaching out to the public and educational groups in the bar ahead of time, then you have a friend when you're wishing to further and advance some judicial ideas or new legislation. Absolutely. That's true with the media and with the educational groups. In the educational groups, two years ago, we originated in a mock trial for a law to help high school students and there were some 34 courthouses that were involved in this to serve as jurors. These were high school seniors. Very soon they would be part of the jury pool. So they had an experience with the courts early and hopefully a favorable experience to some day help people. So it's continuous work. A continuous effort to communicate. Absolutely. And it's not always going to be positive and that's what we frankly have to understand that media relations, ideally every judge and certainly I would like that every story that's produced is positive but that's not going to be the case. So when there are those negative stories, it's just as important not to shut down and say how negative it is. So are the negative stories when they're trying to implement programs? Probably. It used to be probably as recently as 10 or 15 years ago that the media coverage of courts was almost exclusively related to cases. Probably not a proceeding in a particular court. Well, it's probably still the case that maybe down to 97% and unfortunately the rest... David, it sounds like all these programs take a real investment of time and of personnel. Are there ways that court units can deal with this effectively? So it won't be such a drain on their staffing or resources? Yes, I'm very fortunate in that I work in an office of public affairs and this is what we do 100% of our time but I recognize that the 30,000 people who work in the courts are the only ones who are positioned like this or there are an increasing number of professionals who handle public affairs work in the courts. But I think the most important thing that a chief judge in a clerk of court can do is to sit down and say, this is the era of public affairs. We need to recognize that it has to be a part of our life but they have to live and see how it goes and periodically reevaluate. So as the clerk and the chief judge and perhaps the management team are looking at their strategic plan for the coming year, focus on a small area. Don't try to do it all, is what you're saying? Yeah, that's true. And it's because there's way too much to do in every one of those areas. And I mentioned you might want to invite and I know there's a high-profile trial coming up in your court and they usually have some advanced notice even if it's a few months down the room realize that's going to consume an awful lot of resources with the news media and otherwise so it may be that that year affairs efforts do. So if they're very selective about what will be in their goals for the year, they may meet more success and do it in an easier manner for their staff. And we find the same thing in my office in public affairs that focus and reprioritize. Now the problem you have is that so much of public affairs and primarily in the media area is very engaged in a particular project and some of them can come. Are there any other specific ways that chief judges and clerks can work out a policy to enable them to work more easily together? I think an awful lot of what we're talking about here is good communications and this may sound like a fairly basic thing not suggesting there be any real control of the press of free access to the courts but reporters need to know as well as judges and people work in the court what happened several years ago when the chief judges were meeting in a formal survey of about 20 clerks of court, district clerks The other thing that I think is important is I know the judges and we've heard far too many court guests in the same question and that the judges don't. So it's helpful when judges periodically have their all judges meeting that they mention here are some media questions that have come up just for the simple ease of coordination. Those are some good ideas David for all of us to follow. Absolutely. I've had many people say to me I wonder what David Sellers does when he finds himself in a difficult situation and doesn't have the answer what do you do? I really want to know. My first step is I go to the gym I go to the treadmill I put on my walk band I pop in my Bruce Springsteen CD and then sometimes the answer comes to me when that doesn't happen I'm fortunate to have extremely talented staff and a real veteran staff just some of the skills that are in our office and I can walk down the hallway and ask a reporter who does things for the Associated Press I can ask a state court public information officer for 10 years develop the plan for state courts I can ask a lot of veteran people for their ideas and that solves a lot of problems but some other good resources are the state courts are ahead of us in many of these areas that just about every state court the state supreme court or the state administrative office has its own public information officer and they're a terrific resource to call and to bounce idea this sort of public information resources available for clerks of court if they are not able to reach you or they're trying to find out additional information certainly I would advise clerks of court to feel free to contact my office at any time but certainly many of them may know there's state court public information officers who are more than willing to unfortunately this isn't textbook kind of work so you can't go to the library and open a book and say there's a lot of resources on notorious trials and issues like that but I've often said that particularly in the media relations area 2 plus 2 does not equal 4 so you can't tell somebody if you do this this is exactly what's going to happen and they realize that's the frustration another source that we tend to ignore probably is our spouse our neighbor our mailman it's a good reality check so it's like touching the public and they're your reality check and sometimes we're a little too insulated from the public so this is a way to get back involved and it's been one of the real beauties because if when we're educating others we educate ourselves that's important because I think too often the image of the judiciary is a somewhat closed atmosphere and sometimes it needs to be but it is a public institution and it's important with the public David you're helping the courts now the challenges they're facing today in the next few years what do you see as the next set of challenges that will be I think they're probably different if I could talk about media relations and outreach in media relations I mentioned the increasing inclination of the media to look beyond just cases but to look at judges who they are their lifestyle, their travel who pays for their training sensitive issues like that I hope we can do two things one we can sensitize judges and courts media is interested in and hopefully do a better job explaining to the media why judges are different than the key players resources for the courts but it's certainly the same here and I think ideally education outreach we're getting into every school in America public schools, private schools, home schools ideally we'd like to be involved somehow with every one of those and that's just not possible you've given us some good ideas and food for thought what last piece of advice would you have for the clerks out there as they're looking towards the next several years well the first thing I would say is to recognize that public affairs is not a dirty term that some people still think it's not appropriate for the judiciary but I don't think in education programs that the team approach is very successful in time saving to do things by ourselves it just takes too long and is inefficient and there's a terrific network out there goes way beyond the office of public affairs and the administrative office number of clerks of court who have great experience in that center there also was right now in the first circuit I think that the goal in my view was to show that there was Tipo Neal who once said that all politics actually should we and it's nice to have someone on site for services available to many other districts even not within their own circuit and we look forward to their continuing to do that and the clerks again tapping into each other's knowledge great avenues towards success absolutely I agree as I said there's a lot of talent out there and every day we find out that there's a judge or a clerk in court for joining us here in the area of public affairs I'm with that background in public affairs we'll get into our first panel discussion about public relations and high profile cases joining me in the studio is Cameron Burke, clerk of court for the district of Idaho Daniel Layman, public information officer for the northern district of Illinois who in another life is a member of the press and can provide a reporter's perspective and Richard Weir, the clerk of court for the district of Arizona and joining us by phone is Jim Mann speaker, the clerk of court for the district of Colorado welcome everybody to our discussion today with a short video so let's now take a look at some of the challenges court staff face when dealing with the media hindrance her problem and as comfortable as possible from the press and to anticipate their needs proactive was the watch word in the 11th circuit as well when clerk Tom Frann dealt with the media surrounding the recent hearing results in presidential election cases not surprisingly about every afternoon at 4.30 their interest went way up for the evening news feeds both local and national so we tried to tell them where we were and what we expected would happen or not happen we put together a small management team in order to really analyze what the problems were try to strategize as to all the things that we might face and come up with solutions for them like many courts the 9th circuit learned that early planning is the key we found that by registering the media early and posting the rules on the website there was a lot more order in the courthouse we also limited all our media inquiries to just myself the chief deputy or senior manager our experience was they're looking for news anywhere they could find it you had to be very careful what you would say there were times when we just had to say I'm sorry you have to wait we don't know anything more than you do and quite candidly we didn't know as northern district of Illinois chief judge Marvin Aspen sees it media relations also includes building relationships we know we're going to get criticized and that comes with the territory we expect that we're not going to react every time somebody says something negative about an opinion of the courts but if there's an opinion or if there's a story rather that the states the facts of the kids from the states of the opinion we're going to be prepared to be able to have a relationship to that media office we're not telling you not to criticize we're telling you how to do your job but look you're wrong about this Judge Aspen's district a proactive approach to the press also includes education we're going to bring journalists into the building and build them with the what system is all about not necessary for them to write out a story that day so that they will when they do write stories it'll be out of an educated base that's what the courts are about other districts find media visits an effective way to share the court's perspective judges speak to the press as well about their accessibility and their inaccessibility in most instances why they were unable from an ethical perspective to talk about opinions they had rendered in cases when they might be open to taking a phone call and that sort of thing we also use this opportunity to find out from them how we can give them information how better to give them press releases how to get better coverage we'll send press releases sometimes and they wouldn't come but after we've had these media briefings we tend to get a lot more about the things we think are important to the community I'd recommend for other courts and for us in the future when we deal with the press is to try to put yourself in there and us in supplying a service to the public put yourself in their place sounds challenging in the context of a high profile case Rick, your court handled a high profile case involving the governor of Arizona what did you find to be the most challenging aspect of what you had to do in that case I think how all consuming these cases can be they really do take the greater part of your day when they're going on and they often go on for very lengthy periods of time the other thing that was a challenge was determining who the stakeholders were in the whole process it's not just the judge and the parties it also includes the general services administration who runs the building the Marshall service who provides security for the building it will include court staff who need to provide electronic access to the media as well as if it's a jury trial in your court so I think there are those things credentials, seating the crowd control outside the building when you have one of these trials are all factors that you need to take into consideration let me ask you the same question we're in a rural district you've got to be prepared for an enormous amount of attention to your small court the crowds can triple or quadruple there's more inquiries in the Ruby Ridge case Judge Lodge did a great job in procedural order he had a challenge all the media wanted access to the exhibits the charts, the guns and he arranged and required the media to just have a pool feed so that we just had one media outlet photographing all the evidence so that way it wasn't a much problem for our staff Dan is the public information officer in Chicago what would you add? I would add that the media likes to hear the word yes and every once in a while it could be the hardest word in the English language to tell somebody but it can also be a very disarming word no, we can't do that we can tell them why we add not just no but to say why you can or can't do something it helps start bonding relationship between the court and the media so that they understand your role and the court's role and function in this story now we also have on the line Jim Mann speak of the Clerk of Courts in Colorado which handled the McPay case Jim if you could choose one of the greatest challenges in your case so what would you point to? It's very difficult of course to pick just one, there were so many but I think how we do things or how we did things in Colorado a lot of the press that came to our proceedings a famous case in California and things were done how we did things, setting the guidelines communicating those were the biggest challenges early on thanks Jim we're going to be talking to a number of our push to talk sites we have on the line from the Eastern District of Arkansas the Clerk of Courts Jim McCormick Jim your court has had a few high profile cases in its time most notably the recent Clinton cases what was the greatest challenge you faced in terms of dealing with the media and how did you meet that challenge? I think one of the challenges managing high profile case is how to reasonably accommodate the needs of the media without disrupting the regular operations of the court we found formally established a media committee once the designated coordinator who would be there to present them through the Clerk of Courts it's also essential that the media knows that the court controls the trial and not the coordinator to distribute information in order for this arrangement to be effective all media related issues and information this process significantly it's a great effective practice returning to the panel here let's say I'm the Clerk and I find out that I'm going to have a high profile case what do you suggest I do first? how detailed a plan or a strategy should I have and how do you go about the process of setting up a media consortium I think it's been said before but it's true you have to meet early and often and you have to meet with those stakeholders that I mentioned earlier this trial affects a lot of people and who are carrying out a number of different roles so it's important to get everyone together to get them together early and to cover every contingency that you can imagine no one person can imagine the various things that are going to happen the kinds you have working together and communication of course being a must throughout this entire process we use the media committee as well it was particularly helpful very beneficial representative from the print media from the wire services as well as one from the TV station they served as a kind of the self enforcing body if you will for the remainder of the media that were attending the trial and it worked very effectively throughout we follow this up with one another of our push to talk sites we have with us from the Ninth Circuit Jim Honkstedt Jim you were in the clip we just saw talking about your experience with the Napster case how did your court develop its strategy when the Ninth Circuit had the Napster appeal last October we decided to do this we established a small working group of just four people to develop our overriding principle guiding us was to be proactive towards the press we even asked camera men to tour facilities from the reporters perspective what can clerks of court do to help reporters understand the court limits if you will and understand what reporters need certainly the first thing everyone must on the court side remember is that the media is not the enemy needs to be recalled that the media is also mentioned in the constitution your job is mentioned there as well so to get past that stumbling block and recognize the fact that the media is going to then start working to accept the working relationship between the two and that goes draws upon many of the things we've discussed here this afternoon planning in advance on the part of the district court or the court rather and then having bringing in the media to listen to their concerns and it would be best for the clerk of court and staff to remember that the media is a customer it's another customer just like lawyers and litigants bar groups so if they're treated appropriately they in turn will respond and then finally when you do come up with your plan and you've laid everything out just because you've done certain things one way or you've never done it that way before doesn't mean that's the best way each situation is going to be different and unique you're going to have to bend what the situation is before you and in some cases you might even have to amend some local rules in order to make things work for both sides you're a clerk of court you're asked a question to respond to the media below and behold you've been misquoted how do you deal with that? well that would be the first time most misquotes in my experience have been misunderstandings misinterpretation of what was said not misquotes so my experience tells me that most reporters are good hard working people sure there are some goofs here and there that don't belong in the business but most are therefore if you have a problem with a reporter the first thing you need to do is go back approach that person directly any reporter worth assault if it's an honest mistake will correct it it's not an honest mistake or if it's a disagreement in interpretation then you have every right to approach that person as editor initially in that order good helpful hint something that you didn't expect either pleasant or not so pleasant in dealing with the media in my profile case I was surprised at how good the media they were professional in all respects they do need to know and understand what the ground rules are what local rules are in effect but they need to know when court opens when it closes where they can go for information you need to be accessible and I found that they were very good to deal with in fact two questions the first part I would ask if there were any surprises that you had to confront in just in terms of dealing with the media something that you didn't expect and then a second part to that question Jim sometimes it's a public perception that once a verdict is in the case is completed and the media just goes home not always the case talk to us a little bit if you can about what you're confronting right now in terms of dealing with the media okay first of all there are surprises daily but you've got to be prepared through the public perception that once a verdict is in the media thinks it's over that is not necessarily so true anymore because of what we call the talking heads these attorneys that are on all the TV stations they had more contact with the attorney general things like that in learning what the procedures were that the Department of Justice was going to follow so we have a much better follow up getting the what would you add to that in terms of lessons learned I would suggest not to get caught up in the spotlight of the national media remember to focus on your core mission I would also say that as part of your procedure or one of the experiences we've had in one of our cases was that it should direct where interviews can be conducted as the trial went along it seemed like the interviews got closer and closer and closer to the courthouse steps and also remember that whatever the media does they do in 15 or 20 second sound bites when I was involved in a case in Tucson doing Rick's work in the Phillips case they had a lot of questions about the technology and those 15 or 22nd bites don't sound nearly as concise as they should be we've been talking about your division offices in Amarillo how is that different than our headquarters in Dallas and of course that brought a lot of challenges because they don't have all the resources in Amarillo that we have in the Dallas office and two things with the media in the Oprah Winfrey trial is we empowered the division manager to deal with the media we ensured that there was close communication with the presiding judge at all times so that we knew we were in tune with the judge's expectation and those things I think made that successful also we've made use of our internet website extensively and I think that's been mentioned by several folks but that is a wonderful resource Thanks Karen let's follow up on that and talk about the web just a minute how is the web help in terms of disseminating information it's very helpful you can issue press releases you can let them know about the pleadings if you image your documents you can have those orders out immediately and also they can get some background on the court if they're interested in that in one case we had 5,500 downloads in about a six hour period in a small district like ours if we didn't have internet did you use the web at all we did we did an assignment to trial we made the daily transcript of the reporter available on the internet and that was a document case so there were a lot of documents in a fairly tedious case so having the ability to have that transcript and to have it at the end of the day was very valuable to press the internet gives that there's equal access which is very from the very beginning of highly complex cases everybody has the same ability to see the same information at the same time and that's crucial and also keeps all those people out of the courthouse another example is posting opinions in the central district of Illinois for example Jesse Jackson was involved in a very high profile case involving some high schoolers and he decided that he would issue his ruling in that case over the internet and said he would do it at a certain date and a certain time and within the first hour of that ruling being posted on the district court's website they had more than 6000 hits on the site so you can imagine that many people descending upon the small courthouse Jim hoax that back to you in the 9th circuit your court also used the web of the Napster case it went very well we used the internet site to post we even had information on courtroom decorum where C-SPAN and CNN was doing a live broadcast we even put out we put out a 24 hour notice to let people know when it was going to be posted in the situation in Idaho you also have a web sharing arrangement with another district actually it was with Jim Cormick's court in the Clinton case their web server was so full that they pointed their router over to the district of Idaho and we helped them get out the word that's a great helpful hint so the web is indeed an important resource before we continue I just want to note that we're almost at our question and answer session for this segment so if you have any questions fax them in or get ready to use this next question then is for Jim Manspeaker many of our fellow clerks when asked where they went to get information on dealing with the media in high profile cases told us well they just called Jim Manspeaker but my question is where did you go Jim Manspeaker when it first became known that the McVay trial was coming to Denver well actually I couldn't go anywhere because there was so much press in the hall I couldn't get through them and I didn't really recommend though the managing the notorious trials put out by the state court group and the next thing it recognized is as I hope everyone recognized is every court different and every case different but you'll coordinate with your your court and your staff and managing notorious trials the book is very helpful there in fact we cite that book as one of the reference materials that folks in DCN let's go once more around the table just what do you think are the major lessons that you would want to tell other clerks they've all been stated but they're major themes we should revisit that's planning meeting and communication meeting early and often establishing a media committee and working through that media committee being accessible and by that I mean the clerk of the court phone calls be sensitive to the deadlines that the media have with respect to the information that they need provide a media sheet and be cooperative and reasonable King besides those use your resources Jim mentioned one there's another the media guide is published by the National Association of Court Management use the experts in the field the elder statesmen like Rick and Jim and others in the audience they have a great resource out there start with communication with your bench get ready ahead of time plan get checklist and procedural order from other court so you're ready when one of these big cases hits I would add don't forget the public affairs office of the administrative office there's also people like myself in first night circuits that are certainly more than willing and able to lead the hand and as fundamentally as anything grant equal access don't do anything for one media outlet Jim and speaker you have the final word okay I totally agree with that the fairness of the distribution of information basically that's all we do is distribute information and use your website we were able to use our website on this last round and I'm telling you it really saves okay let's now open it up for questions either via push to talk or from fax our fax number is below so send us a note and we welcome your comments let's open it up we did receive one fax and it relates to how do you prepare staff and I'm going to throw this open to all of the panel members what did you do to prepare staff for a high profile case we sent out a memorandum to all the staff that we're going to be interacting with the media during this period of time we called really all the staff because there were great crowds outside the building during the course of this trial so we needed to ensure that staff knew what was going on how to deal with the crowds that were out there we also cautioned them to deal on a very professional basis with members of the media when they were asked questions but you're right I mean a trial like this affects the whole court family not just the individual judge and parties involved and all staff need to be made aware of the importance of sensitivity to those trials same kind of thing email to the staff staff meetings reviewing the local rules that really prohibit court staff and attorneys for that matter for talking about anything that's not part of the public record and making sure that you have a plan in place where all media inquiries are a difference to a certain person could be the chief judge could be the clerk or immediate information officer I would go back and reiterate that the media is indeed another customer again you treat them but if there are specific questions that get asked the staff has to know who they turn those questions to so it's got to be very clear the questions go to the clerk of court, the chief judge, the public information officer but they must know that from the beginning Jim Anspig you want to comment on that did you do anything to just alert staff of the possibility that they might be approached by the media? I did indeed and did it orally because written memo for instance could become but we also isolated the case out of the main clerks office so that What about in eastern Arkansas a question that we got via facts logistics, relates to logistics how do you know how much room in your court room to set aside for the media in these high profile cases and is it always good to have kind of an overflow court room? That's a very critical part of the planning process to determine how many seats you're going to set aside for the media and how many you're going to leave for the public that want to come in and see this trial and so that was one of the things that we discussed with the judge presiding over the case who has the final determination on that as well as those involved and then we had kind of a rotation or a lottery if you will for the media. We also though employed an overflow court room where the audio from the court room was sent down to an overflow court room where the working press could actually go in in a more informal setting and actually be working while they were listening to what was going on and beginning to compose their story so that was very effective not only for the crowds people who couldn't get into the original court room but also for the press who were working I want to work out those details with your media committee or your media representative as part of that committee and put that information in the procedural guide going back to Tucson with the whoops case we had to put in so many tables in that courtroom we had to build 40 tables there wasn't much room for the media so there had to be a drawing of some kind to make sure that that information was shared and they had to agree to a pooled feed on all media sources Jim Mann speaker I know that you also had a separate media area isn't that correct right well yes we had actually we had an overflow court room with audio and then we had a feed to the room above the press room where we could do it we wouldn't let them use cell phone microphone and try to broadcast but we made that all available to the press and the court room file their stories and make their deafness right we obviously could talk a lot more about these high profile cases we're now going to move on to the next segment but before we move on here are some points to remember when working on high profile cases things when there's not a high profile as a former reporter we're going to ask you to put that reporters hat on again what is it that reporters really appreciate and would like to put to understand well for starters as we said earlier in this broadcast they're going to be there it's their job it's the function that they perform in our society of taking the information that comes out of the court and sharing it with a much larger audience and the court itself is capable of doing so whether you like it or not they're going to be there so why not make that relationship as good and friendly and as comfortable for both as it possibly can be and you start that as we said earlier by laying out the ground rules here are the ground rules this is what you can and cannot do in our court here are hours here are what you can not and you can't ask a judge a clerk etc and at the same time knowing that they're going to have different needs that their hours of operation are not the hours of operation in the court the court goes until five four thirty five o'clock when you shut the stores well you still got six o'clock broadcast ten o'clock broadcast in the newspapers their first morning deadline isn't until say eight o'clock in the evening you'll find some way in which to accommodate their needs for news at the time they need it that's important and it's been mentioned before two other things turn their phone calls don't be shy there's nothing worse than having that line appear in the paper and the clerk of court make an effort to get to know these people they're human just like the rest of us so go down and drop if you have a press room stop in every six months every quarter once a year and just chat get to know them because they'll have the same concerns that you have you know the long way to establishing a good working relationship for when you need the media for more than just a breaking story Cam what's your best for your court in dealing with the press on a day-to-day basis I think building those communications is real important we use media orientations in the southern eastern division well I think we have another one scheduled in August in the northern division it's a great opportunity to talk about to educate the media about the role of the courts common myths sometimes you see in the headlines defend us we must prove their innocence that kind of thing you can go over what's secret what's not where they can get information there's a lot of real good pointers that you can give them and establish those relationships so these media days and these orientations are very valuable what do you think the media feel is the most valuable aspect they like talking to the judges opportunities for the judge to get out before the media talk about anything about the court the annual report, the case flow management what's important to them it's not related to the case they also like the fact that they can build communication it goes two ways I have contacts or the court has contacts about who we can contact about press releases but the media also knows who they can contact if they have questions so it works well I have contacts during these high profile cases but you also have pretty regular contact throughout the week on just the run of the mill case that's filed in the court so I think having a reliable point of contact through the media is all important you have to be accessible and you have to return phone calls and you have to be cognizant of the deadlines that they have and what those deadlines are so that you can help accommodate them in addition we have press renewals in both of our courts so that the reporters who are on duty at the courthouse have a place to go hang their hat, do work and have a place to call home we're going to talk a little bit about press afterwards Jim Nanspeaker I'm going to throw this your way to what works for you in Denver I understand that you conduct regularly scheduled press briefings isn't that correct we wouldn't go with press briefing what I do every Friday we publish our calendars for the following week on Thursday afternoon I take a look at those calendars and I pull any case that is set for trial I have the file pulled any case where there's motions for final disposition and those files are available in the clinic