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

if you have to the courtsd courtoffice and which the then announce it is reviewing its press credential practices. its entire premise is that things should not change very much. it is not embracing technology because the country depends on it being stable. the law is very ossified. we are puzzled that the court hasn't quite been able to figure out -- we are a puzzle that the court hasn't been able to figure out. >> give us some nuts and bolts. doma and same-sex marriage case, i was not going

to wait for the legacy press to report it, i watched the feed coming from scotus blog. do you have a mole? oflain the nuts and bolts how you go about that instantaneous reporting. allowscourtroom itself no electronic devices. they are outside the courtroom and at the point that the chief justice says, justice kennedy has the opinion in united states versus windsor, they start handing out the opinion to the press corps. then lyle denniston will get his copy of the opinion and pete will be outside waiting for his copy of the opinion and will talk to us about what the opinion said. then we will be typing that into our live blog to go out into the rest of the world. , we are finish off

going to take advantage of every opportunity we have. there are a whole series of rules in the supreme court that to prevent our invasion of various policies of the supreme court. so we are not recognized as members of the press corps. so we are not recognizing the constraints that the press corps is working under. a set of public information offices available to them as many institutions do. you can have a person or perhaps two people there. we are not recognized as part of the press corps so we will have seven people running on five different internet connections in another two unidentified places in the building. -- when the final decisions of the turn came down, we had a massive team of people, lawyers, technical staff, to

back up technical teams. casewe did the health care before, hackers try to crash the blog. there are a million people on the blog at once. we will set up an infrastructure that is designed to push out information. the court does, you should leave the impression that the court is agnostic about eric assistance of trying to prevent us from getting access, because the court did give lyle a press pass because he has been covering the court for wbur in boston. they're trying to not lock him. likee will do things during oral arguments, we will sit -- the press corps is in the press room. sit in the lawyers lounge, listen to the audio being piped in, and halfway through the argument we will leave the building, collect our

phones. it is to be that they would allow us to keep our phones and then leave. but they have adopted a new rule that you have to put your phone in a locker. there are different option calls that are being created. >> didn't you once try to block from the lawyers -- >> yes. this is the fourth rule that was created. an oral argument, the audio is being piped in and i ok good i will live tweet the oral argument heard i got a call from the marshall of the court who said tom, we know this is a twitter thing. .ou know what that is i didn't see you in the courtroom, what was going on. -- the nextre just

day they put in sign saying no electronic devices in the lawyers lounge. have, as anomalous as it is, we have great advantages. this is a thing where experience and form present opportunities, but they also constrained. if you just go in there and say i have this technology, to have a set of rules? i'm going to look at the margins of the rules and exist there. thisy has ever done before? that is not my problem. you're going to screw a lot of people.p and upset they have been justified in being upset with us. is, people should look for targets of opportunity. there are a lot of institutions, a lot of places out there that are fascinating to write and talk about.

saye going to come in and all right, i'm going to do that. for a million people to be sitting on the block waiting for the results of the health care decision, we obviously have to thank cnn and fox for contributing to the reputation that the blog has. we have to thank the press in many different ways. it is an extraordinary statement about how it is that there is a hunger for information out there , how there are a series of institutions that their goal is not to make themselves more accessible. the supreme court is ironic in the sense that it is the place in washington that is most open in some senses. all the cases they're going to hear, all the arguments that they're going to consider, you see the results of their decisions in the opinions, unlike the presidency, unlike the congress in any way.

at the same time, it does very little to explain itself to the public. it leaves itself out there. that is just waiting for someone to come along and say ok, i will explain that place to you. because it is so focused, because there are so few cases, it creates an incredible opportunity for us. if you can imagine trying to cover the presidency is a blog, who knows what they're thinking or what information is being presented. there are other things out there other areas of study, other places where you can literally own them. i think those are just waiting to be discovered. that -- >> on a month- to-month, week to week and year to year basis, they have made their judgments about the blogs credibility. for the reporters that don't cover regularly and suddenly they have a water case out of

texas and need to know what the supreme court is going to do with it, they find us. they know we purport to be experts on the supreme court and will be willing to talk to them. we get calls, i give fashion advice. calls from people in investment funds and hedge funds about when the court was going to issue its decision and how quickly could they know. that if you decide you're going to dominate a small enough niche, a mind over matter, you can do it. i want to ask a question that any or all of you can address and we have talked about it a little, tom talked about the secretive nature. let's talk about the opening up in the role that scotus blog has

played in providing, if not more ccess, the scholarly experts around the lock can be arranged.y how has scotus blog open up our knowledge about the court and also the legal community and who's involved in these discussions? it has maybey broadened the circle of people with special knowledge. it is brought more people into the tent, to use a different term. because you can always get this feeling about the supreme court by going to the annual seminar that law schools put on about the court or

reading law journal articles or hanging out with other law professors who are obsessed with this institution as much as tom and amy are. but the scotus blog has invited basically the entire country to come in and the party to these discussions. i think one of the things we have to talk about today is the flow of information about the court. no single institution, scotus blog included, can fundamentally change the way the court decides to let you know what it is up to. starts at ninel justices in only nine justices. there are no staff people in the room when it decides to hear or not hear a case. leak.cisions don't we are talking about another -- this is very unusual about the supreme court heard a number of times in the last century that

what the supreme court was going to do any case has leaked out. i think it is too. there are well documented and both resulted in changes in the way the court operates to make sure that would never happen again. the flow of information is very controlled by the court. i don't think any blogger news organization can change that. the scotus blog has certainly changed that by allowing everybody to gather around this watercooler and hear about what the supreme court is up to. >> i would agree. guyn't tell too many old stories, but when i first start to cover the supreme court it was literally -- if you are not didn't havef you'd a friend in d.c. who could go down to the courtroom to get the physical copy of the decision and put it on a fax machine or it was not

accessible. you could not get a supreme u.s. lawnion until week printed up and send it to you in the mail three days later. remarkable what scotus blog has done. the court has also entered this field gingerly. they have a pretty decent website and they do put up decisions fairly soon after they are announced. but what the blog has done has has addedplifier and courtto what the supreme puts out and the supreme court doesn't put out all that much. it is tremendous. now makes the audio available the same week. mixed opinions available on its website within three minutes of them coming down. there are same-day transcripts. well that sounds relatively

modest, they are very significant changes for the court. the fact that there is an online docket urged this is a place that lives on the principle that there won't do much change. that kind of non-dynamic environment is really an opportunity not an obstacle. they are a big institution that a lot of people care about that sometimes during the course of the year lots of people will tune in. is there going to be a constitutional right to same-sex marriage? there's a big part of the population interested in that. is obamacare constitutional? it take group of people will focus on that third they take institutional will not adapt itself to getting that information out there. in terms of what it is that we are able to do as part of a national conversation, it should be clear to everyone that we are hardly alone. so for example american lawyer media, for which tony now works, has this wonderful publication called quote supreme court

insider." on all the laws that the justice department and the supreme court, but inside of one platform in nbc news, as the website of the news. we are far from alone in taking tony operates on one economic model. some of his material is free to the blog. some of it is subscription only to the supreme court insider. pete's work is advertising supported. we have this unbelievable sponsor in bloomberg law that has been essential to financing a huge number of the things we do. thing about the national conversation that i will put on the table is an interesting dilemma for everybody who is going to run a website is how much you allow that draw the community to participate in your website

through comments, in particular. there are websites that have unbelievably substantive comments, that is to say one out of every three is intelligible. a libertarian site has a community that actually does write some very interesting things. >> this is named after a law professor. contentxperience with was uniformly horrific. i will say that. we originally had anonymous commentary on the blog, then we names on itut their and for a while people felt constrained and then couldn't control themselves. unfortunate because we would really like to be part of an actual forum -- >> as a user of the blog, i do miss those comments at all. >> we saw that they were reducing the reputation of the blog rather than increasing it.

you can really increase your number of hits on a website by allowing a bunch of people -- because they will come 48 times an hour to see if anybody responded to the comment. and then respond angrily to the idiot. you can have a conversation, but it is not a very good conversation. i wish that we -- i hope that websites can move forward very there are different technologies being employed about moderated comments and you can elevate comments as good and bad. we have not done that well. i really would like for us to be a place where people can come and talk about their supreme court. it matters. when the justices decide a case like obamacare or same-sex marriage, they are effectively amending the constitution. they are interpreting the fake the constitution to come up with an incredibly important result. it matters hugely and affects

our daily lives and we ought to be more active in participating and talking about it. that is something we have failed to do and is a challenge for us going forward. >> it is a great opportunity to bring in janet murray. janet, let's talk a little about blogs in general. logs aren't journalism. yet they have played an enormously important role in rethinking our assumption about expertise, who gets to speak, what conversations can be held, what access the audience should or could have. why is it significant to have blogs like scotus blog? is very interesting to me that you make that distinction. i'm impressed by the fact that amy took the award in that am so happy that this validates blogging.

we are living in an age of media evolution. dean davis said about honoring scotus as is a significant moment in media. i don't think it is about the form of the blog, i think it is about the way that having all of -- of digital media allows you to make this radical change of thinking what is at the core of any profession. it is a fake, particularly big -- i'mthing like realizing it is likely icon of print culture that we all lived in the social orders that are formed by print culture.

nothing substantiates that more than the law. have literallyrt been closed out of images. they want to keep literally to the pre-television era. also tied to print culture. are saying -- people it is in journalism because it is a blog. are not of thes same kind of generalization. practicem is a human that is separate from the medium in which it is inscribed. haveadical moment that we when a new medium of technology news into our hands, a

medium of representation, which doesn't happen at all in human history, is 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 or a fan boy whether you are a deeply knowledgeable and articulate arson about something that is and wants to stay mystified and that people make their living by keeping it mystified and keeping that gate closed. it allows -- all of a sudden, if you really actually want to this journalism, what else is journalism if not saying what happens, saying what it means, being reliable, being authoritative and completely comprehensive. that is journalism.

the opportunity is that it can be practiced in a much wider space. what the significance of the blog is that it got them started. it was this domestication event ande ok, now it is free anybody who can write can use it. it is technically available. it is transparent enough that you don't need to learn to many codes in order to do it. to sayis pent up desire what is happening and say what it means, of course it takes a form. wolfe whend like tom he says basically we are all journalists. , but tom to a platform got this and i think this is where attention is very to the platform will allow for participation in a way that broadcasting is does not. tom, you found that that is a tremendousut yet a

hunger on the part of the audience to participate in the conversation. is it an either or question or is there a way that blogs can serve as this forum for those who really do want to participate in the conversation? anybody can start their own blog about the supreme court. microhave an ad in the blogging platform like twitter. the number of people who tweet , the number of people who are tweeting out about the supreme court is roughly about one every three seconds. there is a national conversation going on. one of the difficulties is that people frequently think we are the twitter feed of the supreme court and they get very upset with us when we do things like invalidate out of the voting rights act. there is a whole internet meme that is very wonderful and that we respond to them as if we are the supreme court. it can get a little mean.

the name of the blog. i do think that the development of technology and the low cost of distribution mean that if you have something to say, you have a vehicle to say it. now, the question is really whether you have something to say. >> or that you know what you're talking about harriet >> exactly. do you have something intelligible to say that people will respect? recognized that less than half a percent of what is written in the blog is written by me. we are a platform where as you mentioned a huge number of law professors will write for us the cousin our distribution now is something on the order of on a daily basis 50 times the annual distribution of the harvard law review. we are a way for people to -- forout the thoughts law professors and people

involved in the practice in ways they would never have done to get an audience. the marketplace of ideas actually works. people will come to the blog and if what they read a stupid they won't come back. so every day, and it is like reputation.k times" we are able to provide a low- .ost platform journalism is itself a piece of information that can be translated. people can write and do videos. university is streaming this. the ability to push information out and for other people to consume and respond through twitter, through their own blogs, is very high. the one advantage scotus blog probably has is a first mover advantage. thisis, we have entered race, we have made the materials available to you, and the real

question is, who will pay to create a competitor to scotus blog? if you want to create another one it would cost millions of dollars to do. you would have to have a very specific set of personnel, a set of fan boys who are interested the supremebout this and crea e court. places like scotus blog and then people just talking through sites like twitter. you can -- if you have something to say your tweets will be noted , your personal blog will be noted and your voice will be heard. we find ourselves too enamored by the technology and swept away by the digital fascination, i think one point has to be made here for the sake of old-fashioned journalism. and that is, the essence of the on what justng

happened at the supreme court is , who is by either lyle a trained journalist and can do this because he has been doing it so long. he can sift through an oral argument and get a sense of how the court is going to decide a case because he has done it so many times before. he knows that if justice scalia asked a certain question that is because he's defending a similar case, a decision that he wrote 14 years ago that he still has a stake in. he has at institutional knowledge. that is why people turn to tony morrow a scotus insider. they are experienced people who understand the institution and have been through. this is not their first rodeo. when tom at any write about the law or when people in their firm write about the law, they are trained lawyers. i think this is just a point to say that you're not going to

learn about supreme court decisions from twitter, usually. what does twitter add to journalism? is tweeting. who it is not about the medium. because they are knowledgeable, you're right. not everyone is a journalist. part is as he said. the no part is if this was your first time sitting through a supreme court argument and you tweet out your prediction of how the court is going to decide a -- whatll, yeah, you you have to say is probably a very little significance heard >> i made the point that we had a million people on the blog for the health care decision. we have a hundred 30,000-hundred 40,000 for the followers. how many people watch the nbc nightly news.

? >> about 10 million. we can run away with ourselves -- >> when peter ported for the nbc nightly news on that evening , in order of magnitude of people saw that then saw it on the blog. change. interesting it is an important development, i do think. but we cannot lose sight of the fact that the way people generally consume news in the united states is going to be -- and also through john stuart. >> actually, my students do not own television sets. >> they are doomed, frankly. think tom's point is a good one.

last year there were so excited we had a million people on the live blog. the next day we had another life log because the court was issuing orders and you can see when you aren't administering ve blog. it keeps you humble. >> there's a lot to be said here and one of the reasons for the success of scotus blog is not really the fact that it is digital and on your computer and you can get it through the fillings in your teeth. it is what is put into it that . >> i't lose sight of area will ask one more quick question and offer a follow-up to the

comment. it is not really an either or. steeredersation here is and has been that the blog is the doom of legacy media and broadcast, that is a misconception. what is great about the blog and i think why we are all out here and celebrating, what it offers is something that he older platforms couldn't do because of time and space issues. ,hat is a great contribution again to an institution that is so important that we know so little of. >> this is a question for tom and for amy. you do so much work and you gather all this information. you feel like you are credited sometimes by people who use you as a source? or set a struggle? >> i do think we are credited. had unbelievable kindness shown to us by other

liketers who have said today is one example among many. as pete said, you can see citations to the blog in "the new york times goes quote and lots of other places. the relationship between scotus blog and the press is evolving. as scotus blog has gotten bigger, it takes on a roll more of a competitor. in some senses to some media, particularly in an economically challenging time. and because we have bloomberg as a sponsor, will there was an era where the art of blogging has been as follows. you started a website and everybody thought your crazy. of're not really worthy respect. that was true but 10 years ago. has been remarkable, now that you have some and that has blog on the end of it name, it

actually could be a sort of credibility. the press has been very willing and very kind about crediting the blog and now our relationship is changing because between reuters and ap and bloomberg and american lawyer media, the arkham eating for advertising dollars and that sort of thing. i do think that journalists apply at extremely high ethical standards in terms of crediting us. there are people who believe that there is copycat coverage from the blog that isn't credited and i think that is probably not right. there are only so many ways to report supreme court decisions. say that the can health care law was upheld or struck down. you're apparently given the choice. but generally speaking, there is only one answer. i don't really see a phenomenon in which people are taking the content of the blog and not giving it credit.

our careers and the success of the blog are largely attributable to the traditional press corps, to be perfectly honest heard when peter so kind as to put us on television when tony has written articles about us, that is really how people have found us. we have nothing but the highest level of gratitude for how we have been treated. >> you brought up the business model earlier on. could you talk about that and particularly your relationship with bloomberg law. where they put their money and how much money they're putting. do you do things exclusively for bloomberg and their exclusive audience, the terminal users? another good illustration of a question that you can extrapolate from. we have those place in the cost of distribution is nearly zero but we are adding a mobile site

and we have to ramp up for the health care decision. about three years ago before sponsorship deal with bloomberg law was a quarter of a million dollars a year. i was paying that out-of-pocket from the law practice. our spend right now is twice that. that is real money for sure, but it is nothing like the amount of money that a major news organization spends on covering a significant area that interests the public. the question of a business model is a fascinating one because there is no way that our traffic on a classical advertising model could sustain what it is that we burned through. there are not enough eyeballs on have 100 we don't million unique users. if we were to use a straight advertising model, the blog

could not sustain itself the level that it exists now where >> ine a reporter -- terms of just eyeballs, but you have a very desirable focus audience that has some value in itself. >> if you are to advertise cars or something like that, but there are a particular subset of people who are reading the blog that various people have found to be valuable. and, because of the unbelievable kindness of things like she body and the like, we have a kind of people dot that appreciate being associated with us. we are incredibly likely that way. -- we are incredibly lucky that way. immunity of lawyers and people interested in the law will use the blog a lot. we have demographic information about our readers. we have a relationship with them

in which we read exclusive theret for their users, paid subscribers. the principal focus is they inc. , they have made a judgment that advertising bloomberg law on scotus law has value for them. busted think it is a social good as you can you said of the fact. bloomberg made a decision that this was something good for the country. they may be right or wrong, but that is part of the calculus. unbelievably good to us. this is another very unusual thing about a sponsor. they give us money and the ask nothing of us. that is a remarkable relationship to have. we do identify things as concert by bloomberg law, we try and highlight what they do occasionally, but they just have decided to finance his operation. -- the precise

numbers are something i would not want to disclose, but it does cover the cost of the blog's existence. he also allow me to work with nbc news. these are the constraints and a so long as people understand that the blog is exclusively sponsored by them. what other people are going to be able to do in this era where media obviously faces real challenges when people like scotus blog are giving away information for free. are other journalistic institutions going to do in terms of financing their operation. >> we created problem rather than solving a problem on some level. what is it that supreme court insiders are going to do in terms of creating unique on send? may inspire people to do more innovative things, to find their niche in the marketplace as we tried to, as well. what you're going to do about a

space like scotus blog. oryou're "new york times" any other big outlet is a real puzzle. we might celebrate its existence, but as an economic it may cause -- more problems than it solves. scotus blog itself may contribute some content, but is the bonding of material by everyone that really informs the country. what journalism is going to do to have a neck comic model -- to have an economic model -- >> i would like to make one less, and then we will bring it to a close. i want to tied in with what janet said about generations and watching television. we know that your real-time competitors on a breaking story like doma -- and i don't know if

nbc cut in on that -- >> oh yes. >> but cnn and fox and nbc, their average viewer is 67. those of us who are standing in front of classrooms with 18 to 21-year-olds, janet's point is well taken. is not their natural tendency to turn on those channels. as the demographics suggest. there is something about why did jeff jones watch those major rulings and civil liberties on scotus blog and not on those other networks? i think there is something fundamental in the relationship todifferent generations digital media that is going to play out here and scotus plays an interesting role because and persuasive because it is so good and precisely because it was peabody. >> let me say one thing.

we are well aware of these trends and that is why we are on the ms -- if you are on the msnbc website you would have the decision.ssed >> we have a lot of relationships like that were nbc and npr and the new york times work together. >> is this annotation weather doesn't have to be us or them. where we are so grateful and it is the distribution that nbc -- because that npr -- we don'trying to have a pay wall. we are not trying to make money on an eyeball basis because we know they reach a lot of people.

we have a lot of these collaborative relationships. to amy'something point. if you create a website, people will learn about you if you have something substantive to say. you will gain exposure to media that touches a lot of people. people ought to realize that if they are good at one particular topic, their opportunity to reach a huge audience is not limited to the number of people who find you through google. it is in fact principally through the legacy traditional media that has so many eyeballs to fill. >> let's take a two-minute break, but please join me in thanking our guests. more from the university of georgia's discussion of media coverage of the supreme court. this is an hour and 15 minutes.

>> >> good morning. our second panel discussion is going to get into the nitty- gritty of covering the supreme court. if you notice on the screen above our panelists, is a sketch which is the only technology that supreme court allows in the courtroom and this is very graciously provided by art lien who does sketches for scotus blog and through our panel i

will rotate through a couple of other images. veteran supreme court reporters frequently described the collegiality among the members of the press corps. often attributing this to the lack of scoops on this beat. greenhouse said, and she covered the court for 30 years for "the new york times," we all have access to the same information. , the typical says washington focus on secrets does not apply to the supreme court. pete williams has said, this is not a source heat. yet shortly after the two thousand 12 health care ruling, janet greenberg of cbs news wrote a piece about chief justice roberts switching his vote. she attributed the story to two sources with specific nor knowledge of the deliberations.

quote he was relentless, unquote quote he was very engaged. " why are there not more stories like this? >> i only wish. if anybody could call me up and give me a story like that i would be happy to receive it. there are several answers. one is that it is such a sealed institution that law clerks anything not reveal about the deliberations. the clerks are usually young lawyers help screen cases

and write opinions. any clerks seen talking to reporter for more than 90 seconds will be fired. i don't know if that rule still i know some people at law firms and then they go off to be a law clerk them,year and i say to well i will talk to on the other side. it would be deleterious to their careers to talk to me during the clerkship. that is one reason why it is so rare because law clerks would be a great source for pending