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‘Court PIO a must for better access to info’
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Posted on Sep 24 2005
An employee or officer who can serve as a public information officer in court will actually ease up the problem of inconsistent and incongruent reporting in the media.
This suggestion was brought up when court judges and journalists in the CNMI gathered at the Aqua Resort Club Friday for the last day of the Judges/Journalists Workshop, which focused on better media coverage of the courts. The National Center for Courts and Media organized the event.
Speaker NCCM director Gary Hengstler said the workshops intended to increase understanding and effectiveness between the courts and the media. The CNMI’s judicial officers and staff attended the workshop as well as the members of the three leading media groups in the Commonwealth: Saipan Tribune Marianas Variety, and KMCV-Channel 7. Columnists and filmmakers also attended the workshop.
It was learned during the workshop that the Guam Judicial Center provides someone who acts as an information officer and functions as a central contact for the media. The setup has been resulted in better access for the media to the court and by far has provided accurate reporting by the media.
Hengstler said the court and the media in the CNMI must come and work together for better access and better reporting. He said the goals of the workshops were two-fold: to inform judges on “First Amendment and media” issues that sometimes occur in trials and other newsworthy court activity, and to help journalists improve their performance in covering the courts.
The speaker led a discussion regarding access and asked the media to provide comments about their observations or difficulties in accessing information from the court.
Hengstler said with judges and journalists talking candidly and learning more about each other during the sessions, the need will be decreased for such things as contempt-of-court findings and media entity lawsuits filed to garner trial information.
