Death penalty coverage, celebrity justice the focus of Carnegie Legal Reporting Symposium March 5

The Carnegie Legal Reporting Program in Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications will host a two-part symposium on “Capital Coverage: Media coverage of the death penalty” and “Celebrity Justice: When celebrities get in trouble, the public learns about the law,” on Friday, March 5, in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium in Newhouse 3. The event is free and open to the public. Parking is available in SU pay lots.

“Capital Coverage” will be held from 12:45-2:15 p.m. Panelists include Mike Graczyk, a reporter in the Associated Press’s Houston bureau who has covered more executions than any other reporter; Deborah Denno, a professor of law at Fordham University and an expert on death penalty issues; and Sanjay K. Chhablani, an associate professor in SU’s College of Law, who has worked on death penalty cases. Stan Linhorst, senior managing editor of The Post-Standard, will serve as moderator.

“Celebrity Justice” will be held from 2:30-4 p.m. Panelists include Bill Bastone, editor of the Smoking Gun; Robert Thompson, professor of television-radio-film and director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture in the Newhouse School; and Midwin Charles, a lawyer, writer and TV legal affairs commentator. Raquel Asa, reporter and weekend anchor for WIXT-TV in Syracuse, will serve as moderator. Asa is a graduate student in the Newhouse School’s broadcast journalism program.

For more information, contact Roy Gutterman, director of the Carnegie Legal Reporting Program, at (315) 443-3523 or rsgutter@syr.edu.