For two days, criminal defense lawyers, sports journalists, law students and journalism majors gathered together at Washington and Lee University to discuss the intersection of sports, the law and the media.
Following on the heels of the much-publicized Journalism Ethics Institute which featured notorious former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair, the 3rd annual Media, Courts and the Law Symposium brought its own media and legal powerhouses to the campus for panel discussions about how the media and the law depend on each other when major sports stars get in trouble.
“When sports, the law and the media collide, they create a perfect storm, particularly in a celebrity-obsessed culture such as ours,” read the program bulletin that was distributed to the more than 60 people who attended the first of the two panels on Wednesday.
That panel included Christopher Lyons, the lawyer who defended NFL player Donte Stallworth on a DUI manslaughter charge, Larry Woodward, the defense attorney in Michael Vick’s dog-fighting case, Jackie MacMullan, an ESPN columnist and correspondent, and Lee Hawkins, a Wall Street Journal reporter and on-air contributor for CNBC.
The panelists’ discussion was thought-provoking and honest about the ways in which journalists and criminal defense lawyers rely on each other to attain their goals.
“I’ve certainly used the press to my advantage at times,” said Woodward. MacMullan nodded, adding that as a journalist, its important to cultivate relationships with lawyers. That’s how you get the exclusive story, she said, by putting in the time.
But for me, the most rewarding part of the symposium experience was the dinner after Wednesday’s panel, where journalism and law students were able to spend one-on-one time with the panelists over drinks and dinner. Wall Street Journal reporter Lee Hawkins sat at my table and spent most of the night encouraging my fellow journalism majors and me about breaking into the news business.
I think it’s a time of great opportunity for young,ambitious journalists, Hawkins said. Hawkins pointed out that convergence is second nature to young reporters and encouraged us to develop our skills for all media – print, broadcast and online.
Really, when it comes down to is, Hawkins said, you’re all about your clips. Read everything, fact check everything, put in the extra time on the front end before you start writing – if you have good clips and multimedia skills, you’re going to find a job, he said.
But he also advised the “print” journalists at the table to focus on metropolitan papers rather than the “big guys” like the New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.
Start small, read everything, he said.
