Courts and The Media: Initiating and Maintaining A Constructive Dialogue

During 2005 and 2006, the National Judicial College’s (NJC) Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Courts and the Media (RNCCM) – a collaborative partnership between NJC and the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno – conducted a series of state workshops bringing together judges, journalists, and court personnel to discuss issues of mutual concern. These workshops were successful in fostering dialogue between the courts and the media, and SJI awarded a grant (SJI-07-N-055) to NJC to support a series of regional workshops. These workshops focused on ways in which the states and communities could create mechanisms by which discussions over issues between the courts and media not only could be initiated, but instituted on an ongoing basis. These workshops produced a grant product that is available on the SJI website:

http://www.sji.gov/PDF/Courts_and_the_Media_NJC_Document.pdf

SJI has been committed to supporting grants that improve relations between the courts and the media; since much of the conflict between the two is based on unfamiliarity with one another’s duties, responsibilities, and limitations. In particular, SJI has been interested in projects that focus on cultivating trust and open communication between the courts and media on a day-to-day basis. The topic is truly critical to the courts, as evidenced by a panel on court/media communications held by the Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ)/Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA) annual conference in 2008, which highlighted some of the tensions between courts and the media, especially in high profile cases.