Florida Bar Attacks Bloggers ... by gimleteye

One of the great moments in recent Miami-Dade history was when union bosses ganged up on Geniusofdespair at the courtroom where Natacha Seijas was forced to defend her recall lawsuit, and aimed their cell phone cameras at her despite the fact of a Miami Herald reporter standing nearby. It was a form of intimidation to be sure, but it was also a recognition of a significant addition in the public sphere to the influence of the mainstream media. Bloggers whose coverage of politics cannot be pushed off the front page. Now comes an interesting initiative by The Florida Bar to limit the influence of citizen journalists.

I'm reposting below, a notice forwarded to me by an avid reader of EOM. Certainly, if this rule were in effect, Natacha would have been more comfortable walking into Miami court the other day. Part of our dismal politics in Miami-Dade is the confidence by insiders who wire the system that no one is paying attention. We do.

Attorneys Attack Rights of Citizen Journalists

The Florida Bar has proposed a new rule to eliminate coverage of court proceedings by citizen journalists. The Bar’s proposed rule 5257801004AA25E> prohibits anyone other than an employee of a traditional media outlet or an official court reporter from using any device which can make video or audio recording from being brought into a court including laptop computers. Of course, the proposed rule allows the courts to continue to record you, but unfortunately, the courts usually don’t want to give up their own recordings without a fight even though they are required to do so.

Ironically, not long ago, the Florida Supreme Court celebrated its
longstanding rule upholding the First and Sixth Amendment rights to public
trials by requiring courts to allow video and audio recording of court
proceedings. In an article about this, the Justices noted that allowing
cameras in courts had not caused a single problem. An article about this was
available on the Florida Bar Journal’s web site at this link
5257582005402FD> until recently. Try the link. Maybe the Bar’s web site was
down or maybe it is just blocking me. Anyway, due to the fact that the
Florida Bar Journal is a government publication and due the Fair Use
doctrine, I have posted a copy of this article
09> on Scribd.

Naturally, the Bar decided to try to fool everyone, including the Justices
of the Florida Supreme Court, by disguising its proposed rule as one
prohibiting electronic recording by jurors. However, the Bar’s proposed rule
allows judges to prohibit everyone other than employees of the traditional
news media and official court reporters from recording proceedings.

As usual, the people who control the Florida Bar didn’t bother to consider
any case law before trying to create a lower class of journalists. If they
had bothered to look anything up (assuming that they are actually attempting
to uphold the law), they would have found that the Florida Supreme Court
previously held:

“Freedom of the press is not, and has never been a private property right
granted to those who own the news media. It is a cherished and almost sacred
right of each citizen to be informed about current events on a timely basis
so each can exercise his discretion in determining the destiny and security
of himself, other people, and the Nation. News delayed is news denied. To be
useful to the public, news events must be reported when they occur. Whatever
happens in any courtroom directly or indirectly affects all the public. To
prevent star-chamber injustice the public should generally have unrestricted
access to all proceedings.”