ABC - NEWS ORGS ASK COURT TO ALLOW THEM TO COVER JENA TRIAL

NEWS ORGS ASK COURT TO ALLOW THEM TO COVER JENA TRIAL

ABC News and CNN are the only two television news services to join a media group that has filed a First Amendment petition seeking to open to the press the trial of one of the teenage defendants in the controversial Jena 6 case in Louisiana. Other petition signers include the Associated Press, Hearst Corp., Belo Corp., and the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. The companies challenge decisions by LaSalle Parish District Court Judge J.P. Mauffray to conduct the juvenile trial in private. The defendant in the case is 17-year-old Mychal Bell, one of the six black teens who allegedly participated in an attack on white students at Jena High School in the aftermath of an incident in which three white teens hung nooses from a tree at the school.

24/10/2007