Miscellaneous

Blog of the Week(end): Schramm from the Courtroom

By Anne Skove, Esq.

Ray Davies and friends said it best: "It's a mixed-up muddled and shook-up world!" Bloggers claim to be journalists, and journalists claim to be bloggers. B-L-O-G blogger.

So-called blogs emanating from the news media usually fail to meet the definition of blog or of news. They read like material that should be left on the cutting room floor -- too wordy for blogdom and too inconsequential to be news. Few get it right.

Schramm from the Courtroom looks like a tv news product with its happy-talking-head-vs.-cleaned-up-defendant banner and doofy 11 o'clockish title.

Who is Ms. Schramm? There's no about section, just a description of what needs to be in an "about" section. There are no links to anything, anywhere. The first entry begins in media res. Only with a bit of Googling were our fears that the blogger is indeed a tv news person confirmed.

The content -- a courtside view of the Nichols trial in Atlanta -- is interesting. Schramm's reactions to the prosecutor's performance, her description of the FBI agent who built a small dollhouse-like replica of the courtroom, and other play-by-play posts make for pretty good (and blessedly brief) reading.

But -- no links!? This takes our blogging breath away. We have always, always, always, whether in blogs or e-newsletters or other content, tried to keep Arnheim and McLuhan from spinning in their respective graves by making online text make the most of itself. One way to do this is through the savvy, informative, utilitarian, and often hilarious use of hyperlinks.

No clues to the blogger's affiliation? No photos? OK court-o-rama has no photos, either, but we're not anyplace anybody would want to see. Schramms, otoh, says "You should see the mock-up of the Judge's courtroom and chambers that the prosecution had made. It looks like a little doll house, with furniture made to scale." Well, where is it? If cameras are not allowed, then paste a picture of your favorite dollhouse in there.

We don't normally grade Blogs of the Week(end). If we did we'd give Schramm from the Courtroom a C for effort. At its heart it represents bad blogging form, but the small daily trial stories are captivating.

Full post as published by court-o-rama.org on September 27, 2008 (boomark / email).