March 6, 2003

The First Amendment & The Mall 2

Lots of updates posted to yesterday's running commentary on two anti-war protestors arrested for disruptive activity at a mall in Albany, N.Y. Go here and scroll down past the stuff you read yesterday. The development of that commentary is, I think, representative of the way blogs are changing journalism...

Before blogs, the story would have remained a brief item in the local Albany press, perhaps recycled as a wire story in other papers, providing readers with only a cursory look rather than a detailed exploration of the incident and its implications for free speech rights.

Here's an example of the kind of poor-quality coverage you get from traditional media - an MSNBC story that's all heat, but no light. The reporter didn't even bother to explore First Amendment issues even after one of the people - at the mall to protest the arrest of the two men - is quoted in the MSNBC story raising that very issue:

Organizers say they still consider the day a success, and that they got their message across: that everyone should be able to exercise their first amendment rights, even on mall grounds.

The original news story got a small mention on South Knox Bubba's site, followed by a brief comment on Instapundit. Next, I weighed in on the First Amendment implications, writing from the perspective of a professional journalist, while UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh posted expert legal commentary on the First Amendment and freedom of speech implications. Soon after, readers supplied additional information, while Instapundit provided a law review article on malls and free speech, plus the text of the mall's press release on the incident (supplied to Instapundit by a reader). And then another blogger dug up police records from the Albany incident, providing a truer picture of what really happened at the mall. And, reacting to readers’ questions, Volokh dug into what the New York constitution and legal precedent says about the Albany incident. In the end, between Instapundit, Volokh and me, a well-developed story emerged exploring all of the nuances of the incident in its constitutional and legal context.

Collaborative peer-reviewed journalism producing a higher quality product: that, my friends, is how the blogosphere works.