Tribune violates orders at hearing

The Salt Lake Tribune violated a court order during Thursday's hearing involving kidnap victim Elizabeth Smart, which sent editors covering their tracks and apologizing to the federal court.

Prior to Smart's court appearance, U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball released a list of orders outlining the expected behavior and rules for media outlets covering the hearing. The 14-point decorum order specifically prohibited the use of any sort of wireless Internet device inside the federal courthouse. But as Smart's testimony began, reporters from the Tribune provided what the paper referred to as "live" transcripts of her testimony on its Web site.

This use of Internet and e-mail to provide the information was a direct violation of the court order and was stopped by court staff, said Tribune managing editor Terry Orme. Orme said the problem was due to an honest miscommunication between one of the paper's reporters and a federal court marshal, who had indicated e-mailing from the courthouse wasn't a real issue.

When court staffers realized what was happening, Orme said they called the newspaper and asked editors to remove the story, which they did on the condition that they could use the information as long as it came from e-mails submitted from outside the courthouse.

"What we did was take down our story and re-did it via the decorum order," Orme said, adding that newspaper officials didn't intend to disrespect the court and later met with the judge to explain their mistake.

Kimball's clerk of court D. Mark Jones later issued a statement saying violations of court orders "may result in sanctions by the court," but indicated no sanctions would be imposed on the newspaper.

Con Psarras, vice president of news at KSL-TV, said his organization asked for permission to do what the Tribune did and was "politely" told no by three different groups.

"It's unfortunate that they gained a sharp journalistic advantage by not playing within the boundaries of what we all know to be the rules of conduct for respectable news organizations," Psarras said.

He said this incident and others similar to it are becoming more common as technological advances make it easier to "run afoul of traditional courtroom behavior" and may affect the way all news outlets are able to operate in future situations.

"It hurts the media in general when any part of media seems to be violating the rules of fair play and the rules we all adhere to," Psarras said.

e-mail: emorgan@desnews.com