YKos — Libby Trial Blogging Panel (scarecrow @ firedoglake)

[swag]

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/08/02/ykos-libby-trial-blogging-panel/#comments

excerpt:

At YKos, this morning’s Libby Trial Panel was a special treat, much like last year’s Plame Panel that Jane organized. Today’s panel was chaired by Jeralyn Merritt and included our Christy and the inimitable Marcy (emptywheel) as well as Sheldon (Shelly) Snook. Snook is the Federal District Court media coordinator who made all the media arrangements that allowed the bloggers to cover the Libby trial. And of course, in the audience to add their own behind the scenes stories were Jane, who led and organized Firedoglakes’s live-blogging effort, Pachacutec (who blogged jury selection) and egregious (who was in court helping behind the scenes). The large audience, many of whom came to Firedoglake because of the Plame story, were kept enthralled by the stories. and cheered the panelists when introduced and when they were done. This is what many of us came for.

We got special insights from Jeralyn for the defense tactics, Christy for the prosecution, and Marcy for the experience of blogging the trial in real time These three pioneers of the new journalism related stories about encounters with the trial lawyers — Wells didn’t do his best crying act — and the Libby partisans — Mrs. Libby apparently has mesmerizing hair — as well as the clashes of attorney styles and ego.

Christy and Marcy also focused on the relationship with members of the mainstream media, and what it was like to win recognition and grudging respect from the reporters who came to understand that their future was sitting next to them, filing in the background they didn’t know, explaining the relevance of arguments they couldn’t quite follow because they hadn’t done the homework the bloggers had done. The bloggers had read the filings and cross checked them against known facts (like the book Marcy wrote).

It must have been a nervous moment for some old-line reporters, watching this group of unknown bloggers who they previously thought of only as DFH, high on snark, and then watch them beat the pants off the dozens of regular reporters. What must they have thought as they realized here was a group of highly intelligent, incredibly well informed and diligent Americans digging into every detail, reading the pleadings, doing their jobs in ways they no longer understood. Who were these people, blogging the trial not just with Q&A summaries but instant analysis, context, meaning, and commentatry filled with insights and relevance — and a picture.

And I suspect the reporters had a sense that these irreverent bloggers were on to them. As Marcy noted today, the bloggers knew what none in the MSM every admitted, that the Libby trial was just as much about the media’s complicity and its seduction by the favors of privileged access as it was the lies and obstruction of Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney. And when the verdict came down, it was not just Libby who was found guilty, but some of the best known media personalities as well.

. . . more