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Judge-bashing panel bashes media

By Mark Obbie

Based on this report in Judicial Reports, I'd have to conclude that the organizers of a panel discussion at the ABA Annual Meeting are as guilty as the journalists their panelists took aim at. The charges? Bias, unfairness, and blaming a class of professionals without digging into the facts. Jason Boog reports that the panel on "Judges Under Fire" sang in near-unison on how tough it is to deal with journalists, and how prone news reports are to superficial judge-bashing. The one journalist on the panel, Dale Van Atta, ended up agreeing with the media-bashers. To me, it sounds like a tired rehash of elitist lawyers' and judges' laments about the media. The rants contain more than a little truth. But they are such gross generalizations, and they often pay so little attention to judges' and lawyers' own complicity in the strained relations, that I keep hoping at some point the planners of such events will be shamed into trying to say something new on the topic. At least this panel touched on some productive tactics, such as judges explaining their decisions in writing more often and rapid-response teams providing a judge's side of an argument when the judge himself is muzzled. But, as Tony Mauro points out in the last item of this ABA roundup, what about the "sometimes baffling" refusal of judges to talk even when the rules would seem to allow it? And I would ask whether there was much recognition on the panel that the cult of secrecy -- from reflexive "no comments" to closed hearings, sealed pleadings, and contempt for open-records laws -- bears significant blame. Yes, some journalists are careless and stupid and unfair. But even the well-meaning ones are stopped in their tracks, every day, when trying to report completely on the law. 

Full post as published by Lawbeat on August 10, 2008 (boomark / email).