Blogging the Landis Arbitration

There are over 75 members of the press who are here at Pepperdine Law School covering the Floyd Landis doping arbitration. They include the BBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, AP, RAI, Reuters, ESPN, LA Times, NY Times, Sports Illustrated, the Guardian, USA Today, Velonews, Road Magazine, and Cycling News. But there is one group of reporters sitting in the overflow press room that deserves special mention: Trust But Verify. It is an amazing blog devoted exclusively to covering the Landis doping case from start to finish.

Based on what I have seen in the past week, I think it is safe to say that much of the press here offer traditional sound-bite coverage of the hearing. But the Trust But Verify blog stands out from all the rest. You can read the daily coverage of the major newspapers and get a 1,000 word summary of the events of the past day. Or you can read the blog and get a 6,000 word summary of the events of the day. Almost every question asked and every answer given is posted on the blog. A roundup of the coverage in all the major newspapers is included each day, and the bloggers include their own editorials about the case.

I interviewed the contributors of Trust But Verify and asked them how they have been received by the mainstream press reporters. One of the permanent contributors to the blog is Judge Bill Hue, a state court judge in Wisconsin who drove down to Malibu to blog the Landis hearing. He said that everyone in the press room has been wonderful to them. He said they were nervous at first about how they would be received, but they have been welcomed as a legitimate part of the press corps. The blog has several thousand readers each day and the comments are testimony to the value of the service they are providing.

Then in the hearing today, Floyd Landis is being cross-examined about what he wrote in comments to the Trust But Verify blog about Greg LeMond. So the folks at Trust But Verify are blogging about counsel’s cross-examination of what Landis wrote in the comments on the Trust But Verify blog. The blog is now part of the story.

Without taking anything away from the mainstream media, I cannot help but sense that bloggers like Trust But Verify deserve a seat in the press room for any trial of public interest. They provide far more information without the normal time or space constraints imposed by the mainstream media. When we think about the press covering a major trial, I have no doubt that going forward this will include specialty blogs like the one so wonderfully on display at this hearing.

If there is any doubt as to whether bloggers deserve press credentials for something like the Floyd Landis hearing, those doubts have been dispelled in my mind.