About the Conference

FYI, LOL or OMG? The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Courts and Media’s latest national conference “Technology’s Impact on the Courts and Media” was presented
Nov. 17-18, 2008, at the NCCM’s campus
in Reno, Nevada.

Created and produced by NCCM director, Gary A. Hengstler, the conference brought together a blue-ribbon panel of experts from both the courts and media professions to explore key topics including: The swirling technology – What does it all mean and where are we headed?; How will the use of new media impact the public’s trust in both the courts and media?; What the media should know about new challenges and opportunities facing the courts; What the courts should know about new challenges and opportunities facing traditional mainstream journalists; Technology’s effect on the courts, media and public; Blogs and online journalism; plus other topics facing our nation’s courts and media.

Download the Technology Conference book

The mission of the conference was to examine the ways that the use of technology is impacting the nation’s courts and how new media is being used to report and disseminate news. The goal of this NCCM conference was to help foster discussion and communication on this ongoing national debate.

About the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Courts and Media

The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Courts and Media (NCCM) was established in 2000 as a way to foster understanding and communication among professionals in the courts and media fields. NCCM was the first entity nationwide to bring together judges, journalists and court public information officers to learn how to better interact and work with each other. With a public skeptical of both the media’s commitment to accurate reporting and the judiciary’s ability to administer justice, the media and the judiciary have a keen interest in attaining mutual understanding. NCCM continues to provide a physical location and learning enhanced atmosphere for ongoing discussions among members of these two professions.

A joint effort with the Donald W. Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, the NCCM also serves as a national resource on First and Sixth Amendment issues. Please visit the NCCM website at www.courtsandmedia.org for more information.

It’s often said that journalism, speaking particularly of newspapers, is seen as kind of a first draft of history. That’s always appealed to me as a general description of good journalism and to expand that metaphor, bloggers and the Internet are sort of the first draft of the first draft.

~ Peter Scheer, Executive Director of the California First Amendment Coalition