bottom up from the texas that were itizens keeping up. eagle eye on every single thing they do. hat's perfectly good as a democratic proposition. are good citizens citizens. and then there are big money eople prepared to send in checks, fun ad campaigns and challenges to anybody who knows the slightest inclination to eal with reality or to compromise. that's on't think forever. nothing in american politics is forever. and there are lots of republicans who don't agree with these things. there are a lot of people in office that don't agree with these things. but they're afraid to speak up the hey're the last of republican-identified voters who on't agree with these things,

who think more like a middle of the road, americans in general about these issues. the health care arena too. but right now, something really xtreme happened in the republican party. t's affecting what the elected officers and candidates feel they can do to address the big in the united states. storm passes and i don't really think the weather here.y is the right one because the one thing, it's not really a storm, is it? it's a human creation. and it will have to be countered activity.uman broad based social movements to areas change in certain and republicans who don't agree

things going to war with other republicans. e see that in american political parties before. etting played out in the democratic party for several decades in my adult life. it's a state-by-state proposition. not something that happens all at once. that is a long-term. that takes several elections. so i'm sorry i can't wave a are some pretty extreme political phenomenon going on out there. use the word extremism advisedly in my title. we are seeing extremism. has a choke hold on one of two major political parties in this country. [ applause ]

>> in a few moments, a journalists who covered the supreme court. after that, c-span's original ladies.first tonight we look at lady bird 1963 to, first lady from 1969. >> on the next washington vyard talks about recent proposals calling for code.s in the tax hen mark mauer of the sentencing project. the making of a statesman and the dawn of american power. washington journal begins at :00 a.m. eastern, 4:00 a.m. pacific on c-span. >> in many campuses, girls feel

anged in school, robbed of their self-esteem and adolescence, and challenged in the low paying field. 21% of their salary. they say invisible barriers and hold rts of forces that them down and dheem back and keep them out of the high echelons of power. this picture doesn't fit reality. it's distorted. the false claims that support it have been repeated so many aura they've taken on an of truth. late 20th s of critics to nism led label her as anti-feminist. hours beginning at noon eastern. and looking ahead to the new year, join mark he gene on challenge 5. tv's "in depth" the first sunday of every month on c-span

2. >> shocking. i saw it that look. i could close my eyes and see now.on the stretcher right i could see him put his hands up. i could see my eyes. and see lose my eyes it. i'll never forget the first case. the sort of bringing me to reality of what was going on here. after he got into the tent. ust the initial sort of triage that he gets to there. we see him. everything starts to work. other teams start to work. we got pulled in. myself and my colleague. in.oth got pulled because the other team wanted us to begin right away. hey didn't want us to be bystanders. they said you guys have to get involved right away. and once they did that and

it was like a jolt. it was like wake up. now you have to act. ou have to be a doctor, you have to be a surgeon. you have to be a care providers. you have to dismiss your emotion. away, whato tuck that you were feeling and what you're worth now. you have to say this guy's like -- you have to stop the bleeding, you have to get him back home to his family. >> in the first book, he uses his own military experiences to write about physicians working in afghanistan. 8:00 on nday night at c-span's q&a. >> scotus blog covers the supreme court from when cases are first filed to when the justices issue their ruling. founders of the blog sfoek at the university of georgia supreme ering the court. the discussion was an hour and 15 minutes.

>> good morning, thank you for coming. i'm director jones, the director of the peabody awards. russell the richard special collections library, titles so houses 70,000 in the peabody award archives. to courage you in the break walk across the hall and see the peabody award exhibit. and mary miller, one of the onderful peabody archivists is here and will glad to give you a tour. so welcome to this facility. awards if you don't know are the oldest award in say,dcasting and now, as we electronic media, because several years ago, we did expand the types of awards we gave as digital era. the

oday is a special day for us because we get to celebrate. one of the first winners. let me refratz that. the first blog we've ever given award too. so we will talk at length about matter? that or does it matter? and how does that shape our access to and understanding of the supreme court and who gets it and how.th i'm going to be the moderator of we'll segue el and o that our discussion and tom as the creator of scotus blog, i'll direct the first two questions to you. i certainly want to have a history of the creation and scotus blog. but it would be best if you describe for efly scotus ience just what

blog is, the intents and purposes. >> if i could ask your indulgence. if i can say something preliminarily. this is the kind of thing that anybody has done for the blog, for amy, for me. we're grateful. both in receiving the peabody, honor s the greatest we've received that people would go to the trouble of putting on of ours t that friends who are clearly more experienced nd better at this than us like tony and pete would come down is an k about the blog exceptional kindness. for all of the folks involved, program, ming to the we're grateful. the second thing, on the program, it's not in any sense scotus-blog. the peabody looked at scotus illustration of broader challenges and rajectories and trends in

media. that is what are we doing with websites that cover a particular topic. cotus blog is fortunate -- exceptionally fortunate is one of a lot of places like that. not necessarily special or distinct, but it gives us an case study to do a about the problems, the media like that. think this is an opportunity to issues and not make it out as scotus blog is special. it's about media and transition. me third thing is if you see picking up my phone, it's not because i'm e-mailing, we might writing to the blog or twitter during the program. poker. ne >> that's right. john mccain and i have a game going. i'm being t think rude.

for those of you watching the on c-span rogram and and i joined in thanking c-span encouraged you i o come visit the unbelievable facility here. extraordinary. portal.log is a we'll talk about the past. it has the legacy of having the title.og in the it's streaming one entry after another. to be a oal is comprehensive source of information about one nstitution and that is we want to have everything that's going n about every case that the justices are considering. that sounds more sweeping than s is, because the justice decide 80 cases a term. it's a manageable set. talk to every conceivable audience. we started out talking about lawyers and other people in the

group, for example. to be fortunate to be bert known, the health care decision, ame-sex marriage, the voting rights act, the general public has gotten to know us better. talk about t we can like amy's plain english. the attempt to push out information to people who are middle schoolers, high students, allllege the way through to people who have law degrees and practicing in front of the supreme court for two decades. so our goal is if you want to have one place to go learn about the supreme court you can come to us. and in so doing, we give you the inks to tony articles, to pieces on nbc, and we can be about the ublic good supreme court. >> if you would, pleeltz tell us about how are this began. the creativeoff of blog. what was in your mind?

>> it was started by accident as many good things are. ago, amy and iars were silting at our house. i thought there's this thing called blogging that you can start for free. why don't you start one about the supreme court. idea being that we were practicing in front of the supreme court. develop a web presence people would look to us and say, gosh, these are the experts. we should hire them for the supreme court case. that was utterly wrong and foolish. turns not to be true at all. the idea.as we like so many people started ith the fact that the cost of distribution was zero. we knew about the supreme court. we were practicing there. you can create a discussion on blogger for nothing at all. that's generally how it starts for people. the most successful bloggers,

us, are sn't include folks that have something they say something to about. we have an economic theory that general al council of electric would say, hey, we need company case the in the court why don't we get website?e who have the that doesn't actually happen. who are in people practice are unbelievably talented lawyers. got us off of the ground, the idea that we knew a lot about the supreme court, that there didn't seem to be a website. there was an emerging forum called blogging that wouldn't cost us anything. it developed from that point forward. about a week later, we were pretty much done with it. on the first day, a website

how d -- a blog called appealing had posted a link to us. 35 people had come and visited. at that point, we were too embarrassed to stop. it.started to stop would have looked foolish. of years later, millions dollars of investment, here's where we are. embarrassed. >> what impediments have you you moved forward. in particular, how it was erceived at first and you gained credibility. hat roadblocks have you had to overcome. >> i think we're an example of -- i think we know just enough to be dangerous. what i mean by that is i think oth form and experience can give you some benefits. that is the form of blogging benefit, the cost of distribution of zero. benefits, thee us press corps had been

nbelievably generous, the institutional press corps. n the other hand, a form can constra constrain and that is if you're in a newspaper or television, you're going to produce information in a particular way. internet and e blogs, there's no predefined forum. we could be anything we wanted. we didn't know enough from experience to say, okay, this is be.t we should benefit is this couldn't be done before. of any broaderrt institution that had a message communicating. we had no profit responsibilities. we didn't have any other staff that we were paying. it was the law firm staff firstg on the blog in the instance. mostly what we had was a chance to do something completely different. if you're trying to do something completely different, you're

we g to screw up a lochlt certainly did. were lots of cases that we didn't cover. the blog really focused a lot on the law firm in the early days if you go back to use the machine.way back we're doing.s that the blog's first five years or really they were interesting don't compare in any way the second half of existence because it was halfway through that we decided that the blog's mission had to change completely. d at is the idea that we woul be out there on the internet and write about the supreme court going law practice was to thrive as a result was working. and wasn't what we needed to do was give up on the original mission of the blog and do something good.

mentioned. you deserve nothing other than that. he blog was started as a complete exercise in self-interest. a lot has to happen in the toitalistic economy that has happen. blogging in general is self-motivated. the ant to get up in morning and write in the blog because you want to express yourself. get to the at you point that you have the esources or the reputations or opportunities to just create a public good. board.when miles came on we had an actual reporter, to what journalistic standards were. the level of objectivity that to required, we did things put in fire walls so people in the law firm couldn't be writing firm's cases. of ealized that the form blogging, what is doing. that is if you're just going to write about the supreme court that day, a couple of things are

going to happen. archival ts of materials about the court brief that at sort of thing present.ot going to we have pages now. we can get all of the briefs from the blog. there is something interesting about blogging. you put a date or time stamp on something. the next day, or two hours later, its's somehow cold, it's dead, it's old. so we needed to break out of people would use the blog as a broader resource. that's what i meant about foreign constraining. scotus blog is on some level not a blog. of can come and read each the individual posts. it was at that point that we decided that we could be much more. we could provide all of the briefs on the cases.

now we take the docket of the court itself. we scrape it, we interleanate briefs he links to the themselves. we do a lot more multimedia. we do a lot more with twitter, sort of thing. we decided that because we don't that we work lse for, we can -- we're just going to be electronic. electronic to be media, which is what the peabody focuses on. so we can do anything we want. every year we will try to change. this year, we will roll out a mobile site. it's an evolution of what we've been able to see and it's interesting. >> continuing on that, amy, would you describe kind of the editor, the e variety of content that you want audience, for your especially when the court's out

of session and in session if you could describe that? >> covering the supreme court, you know, the justices are quite from or the most part october to the end of june. june is a crazy month to blog. we'll have sometimes over a dozen posts in one day. hen the justices go away on their summer vacations. manna from heaven, the confirmation hearing, nothing from the supreme court for the most part happens. ways.ok at things in two of archiving the brief, but previewing the case before the oral argument. what happened before the oral argument. and analysis of the decision comes out. and we have the long term look at is both looking ahead what's going to happen at the court next term, looking back at

picture when it's going to happen in the court in the previous term. day-to-day coverage in terms of the roundup of the news and events of the court, he developments of the court, things like filing a particular brief that might be significant. we also have to fill the summers. we use on-line similar pose yeah where we use six or eight posts from people who know an area of the law. action.affirmative recess appointments case. going to be at the court. prayer, ve legislative abortion. hard to ry very, very make sure that if we've got eight contributors, withe have four from ne side or the other. we will hear from people if they perfect e a near balance. we'll let them write 1500 or a ew thousand words on what they think the court is going to do,

what they think the court should do in these particular areas and we'll post that to try to fill some of the contents. >> you asked a question about credibility. you are a single issue blog. the type of or depth of coverage that tom described. and the amount of space that journalism broadcasts or filing single offers with "usa today" you. but tell me about the perception of credibility. how has that changed over time? i would like the journalists to weigh in on that as well. >> i think the journalists are better suited than i am to describe the credibility. had leaders from all life, in walks of particular, the small community f lawyers that practice in front of the supreme court early on. because e had readers we made mistakes in the early days.

one of the darkest memories is getting an e-mail from a well known and well respected supreme practitioner that said you might want to look at the posts you just put up. referred to the church l-a-d-d-e-r saints. ladder. ing jacob's >> exactly. so that sort of thing did happen and could not have helped our credibility. the quality on basis.-by-post we had at that time some contributors. but the quality uneven. but i think in 2004 when we got

onboard, our quality improved. improved with then the otherg, contributors improved as well. aren't e of you who familiar with how we operate, year.ourt has 80 cases per the benefits on the ground on the court with the day-to-day developments and he can cover somewhere between a third and a half of the cases themselves. major case. we rely on other lawyers and law professors to help us cover the other 50 cases or so. really have gotten some terrific contributors. we also had terrific contributors. but the number have been proved past. a bit in years i think that we see a reflection of the ncreased veblt book.

>> tom and amy do many things -- thank you for having us and inviting me. tom and amy do things well, one thing they do awfully is brag. the fact is -- think about it for a second. tom does not come to practice the e the supreme court by usual route. he was not a clerk. trotten follow the path from the law firm, to the fancy firm. tom is a self-starter. he developed his practice by likely routee most for cases to get to the supreme ourt when the lower courses were divided. one thing they do is harm unite and he law is enforced views around the country. o when there is what they call a circuit split, that's a likely case for the supreme court. way for the a circuit splits and maybe that's the e that can come to

supreme court. in t of big law firms washington would kill to have the scotus blog. one of the thingings we have to celebrate here today is the ncredible spirit of entrepreneurship that tom and amy have brought to this. they'll never tell you that. there have been imitators that scotus blog that fizzle out in the heat of the sun pretty fast. it's an enormous accomplishment. easy ake it sound just as as eating breakfast. it has enormous credibility now. it's not only by the practitioner of cases who will ind mistakes if there are the rare mistakes now. justices of the court. -- read by

distinguished professors around write for the blog. it's the place. it's more than just an aggregator. there.regator out posted it on an electronic bulletin board. of commentary places where lots of people hang out and give their views on the prominent legal issues of the day. but there is only one place like scotus blog for any of the federal courts that offers learned content, commentary, it offers a place to find all of the original source materials about cases. it truly has become the indispensable one stop shopping things about the supreme court. it's just astonishing. incredibly apt s it would receive a peabody award. it's a truly remarkable accomplishment. i forgot the question.

-- credibility over time >> it has none. >> how does the journalistic community first receive this and -- the -- i'll that give you a small example. one of the things that gives john and amy ke said is the contributions of who's, what, 150 years old now? count the rings. longer than some of the justices. he's taught in law schools. he writes learned graceful prose under deadline pressure and he's just an institution unto himself. so we do have to pay a lot of attention. let me give you one small example. the supreme court community was shocked a couple of years ago when a relatively young man been david suter who had i'mhe supreme court decided

out of here. i'm not having fun, i don't like living in washington. i'm leaving. e said one day soon, elena kagan would look on the supreme court and look at the other two women and smile. that's his prediction on who was going to be nominated and confirmed. exactly ow, he was right. so one of the things that gives lity is the credibi knowledge of -- and expertise of amy.and so that's another thing that, tom and it's not just one of the reasons that they fared so well is they answered their phone calls. they know that a relatively small number of lawyers who before ze in practicing the supreme court. you tend to see them over and

over again. phone to them on the answer a technical question. his as been generous with time. that's one of the reasons why flockedsts have kind of to tom and scotus blog in the days before it took its current form. they know a lot about how it works. they've been joan rouse with their time. they compiled statistics about the alignment of justices over the term, how often they agree with each other, how many cases are decided by unanimous decision. you can see those quoted and cited in "the new york times" in "the washington post," it's the go-to source for that sort of well.stical analysis as so they earned this credibility, sort of people they have attracted, but because they have a great deal of expertise about the court themselves. >> tom?

picking up on what i'd said, first of all, a lot of om had credibility before the blog started. writing tom when e was -- when he was the attorney for nina totenberg and p.r. upstart, somebody who was not did not fit the mold as pete said, somebody who was casesalling the losers of in lower courts to see if they supremeo appeal for the court, it was a model that hasn't been used before. interviewing another top advocate of the supreme -- before the supreme tommy nd asked him about nd he said well, you know, you wouldn't want your heart surgery done by the heart surgeon who

alled you up and asked if you could do it. >> who was that? >> fellow by the name of john roberts. who became the chief justice. think he's sort of eating his words on that. tom had the reputation of a real innovator in the stuff fist world of the supreme court. and he was a good media source. when the blog came along, he was -- he and amy were able to overcome some initial suspicions because he -- this was a totally creature here. an as a blog about institution by someone who interacted with that institution as an advocate. wouldn't have an interest in pissing off that

blunt about o be it. we tend to do that. that said if a journalist isn't happy about what you write, you're not doing your job. the fact that scotus blog became that through the credibility and through lyle denison who's iercely independent, i think hat enhances the remarkable nature of scotus blog and how a s become viewed as journalistic institution in

almost every way. i mean, it's possible we could talk about this at some point. you er there are stories aret not write, because you the supreme e court. but i think as a public resource i spent my career lift the veil and shed light over the supreme court. i applaud anybody who's done that. scotus blog has been a emarkable public resource that deserves all of the applause it gets. > that's obviouslily way, way, way too generous. i would say one of -- in my be what this ought to we can extrapolate from our xperience rather than yea, scotus blog. all right, if we were going to do things in other places.

people have in us is who practice in front of the supreme court and teach about litigation. place.hat anybody who spends their entire careers focusing on one place, prettyg to understand it well. what we aren't is journalists, we appreciate journalists. we revere them. we're working for people like tony and pete who are better hope to be.than we there is a sense in the expert community, whether it's lawyers, of we're hatever, better. the journalists just report. genuine appreciation for and the honor we give to journalism is true. of, you reflective know, why it is that if tony or colleagues of their come and ask us a question, we unbelievable

opportunity. it's also the case that people are more reactive and just don't like to talk to the press. they're afraid. they think something will go wrong, it will upset the justices. that's never been our perspective. value it. it led us to hire lyle and led us to adopt a set of values where we were just out there ipping ourselves and the law practice, the blog would look very different and much less successful. doesn't ell it does or do right now turns on the fact that people do not perceive it to omething they're trying sell you something or to develop some advantage for our law practice. >> i think tony raises a set of issues that should be disz cussed.

discussed. can you practice in front of the supreme court and your success credibilitys on the with the justices but at the institution an hat's going truly cover the supreme court and describe it warts and all. how is it that you navigate that sort of thing. if you want to call yourself a journalistic institution. now, if you're an expert in physicings or plumbing, there things that you can talk about and write about and cover where you don't face the pissing some people off. we -- the justices pay attention press.ir so there are a unique set of challenges. i'll identify one other thing that we could talk about. that is that we watch the court with a sun like intensity

because we're completely obsessed with it. so, we have a finger on the pulse of the institution. so that when it has glitches, as it does, releases opinions early when it doesn't mean to, when it identifies cases that are going grant cert in days early, it's not supposed to do that, we're just watching them obsessively, what is it that we practice in front of the court, what do we do there? there are special challenges. apologies, i'll find one other thing. the weirdest anomaly about zoe bl -- scotus blog. we have 200 people write for us in the year. we're only about the supreme court. people who ly materially cover the supreme court in the thinnest way that supreme court itself refuses to recognize.

we don't have the press court.ial at the the court held a rule that says f you have a senate press credential that you will be credentialed by the supreme court. we've got to send this credential earlier this year and supplied our -- then applied to press office rt's at which point the court announced it was reviewing the credentialing practices. i think genuinely, the court is n institution that is very staid. its entire premise is that shouldn't change that much.

in the united states versus windsor, they start handing out press corps.to the lyle will get his copy of the outsideand pete will be waiting for his copy of the opinion. about what k to us

the opinion says. into our taking that live blog to go out to the rest of the world. finish soft, the -- we're going to take advantage of every opportunity we have. there are whole series of rules at the supreme court that are, frank, adopted to prevent our evasion of various policies at the supreme court. so we're not recognized as members of the press corps, okay, we're not going to be subject to any of the constraints that the press corps is. so the -- the core press corps at the supreme court, the court a set of public information available to them. where you can have two people. he will have seven people running on five different in another nections wo unidentify places in the building. so when the final decisions of

he term came down, we had a lawyers.eam of people hackers threatened to hack it and shut it down. i shouldn't s -- leave the impression that the court issing a nottic or trialing to prevent us from getting access. lyle it does give denison a pass. to block is not trying us.

members of the bar pchlt the press corps is locked in. hey used to allow us to keep our phones and leave. but they adopted a rule to keep the locker.n >> blog from the -- >> this is the -- this is the created to that was address our practices was there was an oral argument. being piped in. i was -- no problem with this. the oral live tweet argument. and i got a call from the said, l of the court who tom, we noticed this twitter thing. is.don't know what that but straight on to the blog. straight on to the blog. that's right.

i didn't see you in the s going on?what wa i said i was in the lawyer's lounge writing away. she said that's not going to happen anymore. and the next day there was no el electronic devices in the lawyer's lounge. we had great advantages. experience and form present opportunities but they also constraint. if you go in there and say, look, i have technology. you have a set of rules, look, i'm going to look at 2 marrinsover the rules there. nobody's done that before? that's not my problem. ou're going to screw a lot of things up. we're going upset some people. they're just iffed in being upset. not just because they're crotchty. what i suggest is that people should look for targets of

opportunity. institutions t of and places that are fascinating. if you were to come out and look that, i'm going to do you could get an audience. for a million people sitting and waiting for the health care decision. fox forto thank cnn and contributing to the reputation that the blog develops. thank the press in many different ways. it's an extraordinary statement about how it is there's a hunger for information out there. how there are a series of institutions that their goal is themselves more accessible. he supreme court is ironic because they're the most open. you know the cases they're going

to hear. you see the results in their opinions. unlike the presidency, unlike congress in any way. so at the same time it does little to explain itself to the public. it leaves itself out there. that's waiting to come along and ay, okay, aisle explain that place to you. because it's so focused, there are so few cases. it creates an incredible opportunity for us. if you imagine trying to cover in the blog, who knows what in the world they're thinking. what information is being presented. the same with congress. there are other things out there n the world, other areas of study, other places where you them.terally own hose are waiting to be discovered. >> i want to follow up on that. tony and pete see us on a month-to-month, week-to-week, made theear basis, who judgment about the blog's credibility.

but for reporters who don't regularly and all of a sudden they have a water case out of texas and they supreme now what the court is going to do with it. they find us. i don't think they know a lot about us. but they know we purport to be supreme court. we're willing to talk to them and be resources for people on all kinds of topics. we get fashion advice. what should i wear. in line? get e got a lot of cause about the investment funds and hedge funds about when the court was going to issue a decision. if you decide you're going to dominate a small enough niche, sort of a mind over matter, you can do it. ask a question that

can address.f you let's talk about the role that played.blog a platform for dialogue, a platform for additional reporting. seems to me up it is with the legal community. thescholarly experts around tightly arranged around law schools and journals. how has law school opened up the knowledge of the court, the information about it. he legal community and who's involved in this discussion. maybeould say that it has people d the circle of with special knowledge. it's brought more people into different use a term. because you could always get of sort of insight kind feeling about the supreme court

going to the annual seminar hat law schools put on about the court or reading law journal articles or hanging out with other law professors who are upset with the institution as and amy are. but this has -- this is -- scotus blog has invited basically the entire country to ome in and be a party to these discussions. so i think one of the things todaye have to talk about about flow of information the court. no single institution, scotus fundamentally an change the way the court decides to let you know what it's up to. because, remember, it all starts s, only nine.tice there are no staff people in the oom when it decides to hear or not hear a case. decisions don't leak.

we're talking about another -- unusual about the supreme court. the number of times in the last supreme court e is going to do in the case has leaked out. i think it's two. they're well documented and both resulted in the way the court operates to make sure that didn't happen again. the flow of information is controlled by the court. and so, you know, i don't think any blog or news organization can change that. access to it. the scotus blog changed that by athering around the water cooler and hearing what the supreme court is up to. would agree. i won't tell too many old guy stories. when i first started covering the supreme court, it was were not in if you dc or you didn't have a friend in dc who could go down to the ourtroom and get the physical

copy of the decision and put it on a fax machine or something, it was not accessible. you could not get an opinion ntil the u.s. law released it, printed it up, sent it to you in days later.ee remarkable. the court entered this field gingerly. they have a decent website. they do put up decisions fairly they are announced. but i think the -- what the blog an amplifier een t and has added value to this is a place that lives

on the principle there won't be much change. that kind of nondynamic environment is an opportunity, obstacle. a big institution that lots of people will care about that sometimes in the course of the will tune f people in. is there a constitutional right to same-sex marriage? es, there's a big part of the population that's interested in that. tional.a care constitu a huge number of people will focus on it in an institution that won't adapt itself because it's very staid to getting that information out there. in terms of what it is we're a nationalas part of conversation, it should be clear to everyone that we are hardly alone. so, for example, american lawyer

media, for which tony now works, publication, rful supreme court insider, which is about more information the court. pete reports on the law, the justice department, the supreme court. in nbc of one platform news, msnbc, and the website of nbc news. so i do think that we are far in taking advantage of the lowest cost of distribution. e should talk about the economic modelsf. tony operates on one. ome of the materials free through the blog. some of it is a subscription through. peitz work is advertisement supported. we have a sponsor in bloomberg law that's been essential to financing a huge number of things that we do.

one thing is how much do you participate through the website in comments in particular. there are websites that have comments that one out of every intelligible. i'll give you an example. they have a community of people who do write some very interesting things. named after a law volik. or named gene >> our experience was uniformly horrific. aisle say that. we originally had anonymous commentary. then people felt constrained and couldn't control themselves. this is unfortunate. be part of an actual -- a forum for a national -- blog, i ser of the don't miss those comments at

all. reducingught they were the reputation rather than increasing it. ou can increase your number of hits on a website by allowing a bunch of people -- because they 48 times an hour to resfond their comments and respond angrily to the idiot. conversation, a but it's not a good conversation. hope that we -- i websites can move forward. here are websites being developed like elevating bad.nts as good and i would like for us to be a place to talk about their supreme court. matters. if the justices decide a case about obama care or same-sex amending the 're

constitution. they're interpreting it to come up with an incredibly important result. it matters hugely. it matters to each of us. we ought to be more active all of us in participating and it.king about that's something we failed to do. us. a challenge for >> janet murray, let's talk a blogs in about general, blogs aren't journalism. yet they've played an enormously important role in rethinking our assumptions in society about expertise, who gets to speak, held.conversations can be audience should or could have. why is it significant to have blogs like scotus blog. what does a blog do that journalism can't do? >> very interesting that you that distinction and i was

touched by the fact that amy took the award for that. i think we are living in the age of media evolution. i think what david said about onoring scotus blog being a significant moment for media, i think it's important. thei don't think it's about form of a blog. the way that bout afordances of the digital media allows you to do thinking,cal change of what is at the core of any profession. o the fact -- so it's a big -- t's particularly big in something like the -- i'm listening and realizing. it's the icon of print conscious

that we all live in the social orders that are formed by print culture, but nothing that more than the and the supreme court with literally close indicates. so they want to keep tuned to pretelevision era. -- and journalism is also tied to print culture. so we think that -- people are saying it isn't journalism because it's a blog. those two things are not -- they're -- they're not of the same kind of generalization. journalism is a human practice medium separate from the in which it is -- and the radical moment that we have on

the new media technology comes into our hands with no medium of representation does not happen history, is n human that we can rethink these core activities in a wider space of expressiveness. all of a sudden, reporting on the supreme court, whether you're a practitioner, whether you'rea fan boy, whether just deeply knowledgeable and that's te person, something that is mystifying, you know? and ants to stay mystified that people make their living by keeping it mystified and keeping that.

can be rtunity is it practiced in a much wider space. so the -- so the significance of the blog is that it got things started. that there was i think of this okay, mesticated event, it's free. but anybody who can write can it, technically available. transparent enough that you don't have to learn too many codes to do it. then a pent up desire to say what's happening. of course it takes that form. > tom wolf says we're all journalists. but sit to a platform is that -- this.t this is worth our attention. the platform is it will allow participation in a way that broadcast news does not.

tom, you found that's a liability but yet a tremendous hunger on the part of the audience to participate in the conversation. question n either/or or is there a way that blogs can for those whoorum want to participate in the conversation? anybody can start their own blog. they have it in the effect, in a twitter.e the number of people who tweet out, like i have -- the number tweeting out are about the supreme court is roughly about one every three seconds. so there is a national conversation going on. peoplethe things is that frequently think we're the twitter feed of the supreme court. whenget very upset with us we do things like invalidate part of the voting rights act. there's a whole internet meeting

wonderful -- if we respond to them as if we have the supreme court, it can get mean. >> by me. the do think that development of technology and distribution f if you have something to say, you have a vehicle to say it. >> the thought is do you have something to say. you have something intelligible to say that people can respect. recognize, for example, only half of percent of what's written on the blog is written by me. we're a platform as you entioned a huge number of law professors will write for us. our distribution now is omething on the order of a daily basis, 50 times the annual distribution of the hartford law right?, so we're a way for the people to

thoughtins for law to essors, for people practice in a way they never could. lacequestions -- the marketp of ideas actually works. people come to the blog. if what they read is stupid, back.on't come "the new york ke times" built up a reputation. tony, pete in nbc news built up reputation. what we are able to do is to low-cost platform ournalism is a piece of information that can be translapted to ones and zeros. people can write and do videos. the university is streaming this. the ability to push information ut and for other people to consume and then respond through twitter, through their own blogs is very high. he one advantage scotus blog probably has is a first mover

advantage. that is, we've entered the space, we've made the materials available to you. n is who eal questio pay to create a competitor to scotus blog. if you want to create another ne, it would cost millions of dollars to do. you have to have a specific set of personnel. i have a set of fan boys interested in writing about the supreme court and knew about it. so i do think that the future of supreme g about the court include traditional classical journalism and its evolution. places like scotus blog. then people just talking through sites like twitter. and if you have something to say, your tweets will be noticed, your personal blogs will be noticed. your voice would be heard, i think. >> professor, before we find ourselves too enam orred by the away by theand swept digital fascination, one point

has to be made here for the sake journalism.ioned blogss the essence of the reporting on what just happened at the supreme court is executed by either lyle, who is a trained journalist and can do this because he's been doing it so long. he can sit through an oral argument and get a sense of how the court is going to decide the case because he's done it so many times before, he knows that justice scalia asks a certain question, that's because he's efending a similar case, a decision that he wrote 14 years ago. that he has a stake in. institutional knowledge. that's why people turn to tony insider because they have this -- they bring a lot to the table when they write about what they just saw. so they're experienced people who understand the institution -- this isen through not their first rodeo. and when tom and amy write about the law or when people in their

firm write about the law, they're trained lawyers. so just -- i think this is just you're not ay that going to learn about supreme court decisions from twitter, usually. what does twitter add to journalism? >> it depends on who's tweeting? it's not about the medium. because they're knowledgeable, you're right. journalist. is a >> yes and no. the yep part is as you just said it. the no part is that if this was our first time sitting through a supreme court argument and you tweet out your prediction about how the court is going to decide yeah, you've -- you've -- you know, you've raised your hand. is of t you have to say little significance. >> one other point of not getting out in front of ourselves. i made a point that we had a million people on the blog for decision. care 100,000, 140,000 twitter followers. "nbcany people watched the

nightly news"? >> billions. >> billions. >> and -- >> fortunately. >> healthy, strong, accessible. about 10 million. >> so you have to -- we can't run away with ourselves in terms of -- when pete reported for, the "nbc nightly news" on that evening, you know, order of magnitude of people thethat more than saw it on blog. so we can't -- it isn't an interesting change. it is an important development, i do think, and other things are important developments. but we cannot lose sight of the fact that the way people the ally consume news in united states is going be --ough, you know, the pete >> me anyway. >> and also through john stewart. >> my students do not own television set ms. they're -- no. >> theirs too, frankly.

the point is a good one. last year when the court issued a health care decision. were so excited we had a million people on the live blog. had another we live blog because the court was issuing orders. ou can see when the administrator of the live blog, how many are on the live blog? day.ad 200 that it kept us humble. >> i just want to say is that i digital media have made it possible to receive new ways.n i'm just saying that there's a lot to be said here. for the e reasons success of scotus blog is not merely the fact that it's computer andn your you can get it through the fillings in your teeth. into it that's put that we can't lose sight of. >> point well taken. would like to take questions and there's a microphone on both sides if you would come up and e prepared and while you're cueing, i'll ask -- i'll ask one

more quick question and say -- r follow-up to the comment is it's not really an either-or. steered nversation is and said the blog is the doom of legacy media and broadcast, misconception. what's great about the blog and we're here in celebrating is the olderirst things, platforms couldn't do because of issues. space and that is a great contribution, again, to the knowledge of an institution that's so important but that we know so little of. we'll take a question here. >> hi, thank you so much. it's really good. tom and amy, you do so much work. you gather all of this information. do you feel like you're credited bipeople who use them yao as a source. or is that a struggle? >> i do think we are accredited.

we have e present -- had unbelievable kindness shown other reporters who ave said what today is one example among many though the most special, kind things about the blog. said, you can see citations to the blog and "new ork times" and lots of other places. -- the relationship between scotus blog and the evolving. it's taken on a role more of a competitor in some senses, to some media. particularly in an economically challenging time. and particularly because i think we do have bloomberg as a sponsor. there was an era in which scotus blog and blog -- the art of blogging is as follows. you started a website, everybody thought you were crazy. not worthy about respect.

its's true about ten years ago. its's remarkable if you have something that has blog in the end of its name, it can be a sign of credibility. the press has been very willing and kind about crediting the blogs. relationship is between because roiterrors and a.p. and bloomberg, they're competing for advertising dollars and that sort of thing. i think journalists apply extremely high ethical standards in terms of crediting us. here are people who believe that there is copy cat coverage from the blog that isn't credited. that's probably not right. there are only so many ways to report supreme court decisions. es you rt does -- sometim can say that the health care law was upheld or struck down. given that ently choice. but generally speaking, there's only one answer. see a i don't really

phenomenon in which people are taking the contents of the blog credit.giving it we -- our careers and the largely f the blog are traditional to the press corps to be perfectly honest. when pete puts us on television, when tony writes articles about people find us. we have nothing but the highest level of gratitude for how we've been treated. >> you talked about the business model. would you talk about that. nd particularly the relationship with bloomberg law? how much money they put in. bloomberg tuff for and their exclusive audience, users?minal >> right. this is another good illustration of a question that you can just extrapolate from,

right? we have this place. the cost is nearly zero. on the other hand, we have a mobile site, we have to ramp up. the health care decisions, they are -- they spend about three years ago before our sponsorship was a th bloomberg law quarter million dollars a year. i was paying that out of pocket practice.law our spend right now is twice that. we spend about $500,000 a year. sure, but money, for nothing like the amount of money that a major news organization significantvering a area that interests the public. business mod f a sell a fascinating one. that we could

suls tan what we burn through. there are not enough eyeballs on the blog. if we use a straight advertising sustainhe blog couldn't itself in the level that exists now. we didn't have a reporter -- numbers?ms of >> in terms of just eyeballs. desirable e a very focussed audience that has value in and of itself. transition.he if you were to advertise cars or omething like that, there are particular subset of people who that ading the blog various people have found to be because of the and the of peabody like, people want to be associated with us. exclusive aw, our sponsor think, i think, the community of lawyers and people e theest in the law will us