Traditionally, there are 100 seats reserved for the press at court hearings. For the first time in the history of the federal court system, however, two of these hundred seats will be reserved for bloggers, thanks to Media Bloggers Association.
After two years of negotiations with judicial officials across the country, the Media Bloggers Association, a nonpartisan group with about 1,000 members working to extend the powers of the press to bloggers, has won credentials to rotate among his members.
The fact that this is going to happen at the trial of Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who is the highest-ranking Bush administration official to face criminal charges, could help bloggers gain widespread respect within the press and make this special access the norm.
Washington Post has more. [via BoingBoing]
Originally posted on January 12, 2007 @ 12:32 pm
I have been made aware that Robert Cox is planning to arrange a seat at the Libby trial for one of his bloggers – a Lance Dutson of
http://mainewebreport.com
I have been following Mr Dutson’s blog for some time, and have come to find that most of his accusations appear to be brazenly untrue – untruths about which he has repeatedly been made aware. He has even admitted to knowing this a few times, but these admissions eventually disappear… and off he goes again, on another rant.
Robert Cox informs me and others that he has never even read Dutson’s blog. I find this, if true, to be an act of extreme negligience.
If you do read Dutson’s blog, you will see that the headlines are never corroborated by fact, but rather, the links point only to more of his own accusations, or even to documents which actually CONTRADICT his accusations.
Apparently, people only read the headlines. And they believe them.
He appears to get the most gratification out of making searingly vicious personal attacks on total strangers whom he somehow perceives as being enemies.
He behaves like a web troll, and nothing else but. I find it very difficult to believe that anyone would assign a seat at the Libby trial, and its resultant journalistic credibility, to someone without ever having checked his credentials.
Web trolls should be eliminated – not elevated.
There is an update to this story…Cox admits that he did read Dutson’s blog up until May of 2006, but since then he has only “Skimmed” it. I have emails from him admitting this.
Whole story here:
http://truthaboutlewis.blogspot.com
Thank you–