Coalition of Twenty Major Media Organizations Ask Manning Judge To Provide Court Access to Public Stenographer

UPDATE: We've recieved word that the judge has ruled that the professional court stenographer CAN transcribe the trial from the media room using a stenography machine. This is great news. However, we are still without press passes, and the military media desk has yet to respond to our request to issue them to the stenographers. If you are a media organization that is not going to use your press pass tomorrow, please contact us. They are transferable. Since we published, Bloomberg News, Newsweek, New York Magazine, and Reporters Without Borders have joined our coalition.

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Today, a coalition of more than twenty major media organizations—including the Los Angeles Times, NPR, Fox News, and the New Yorker—wrote a letter to the US military court urgently requesting two additional press passes for professional court stenographers so they can provide the public with accurate transcripts of the trial of Bradley Manning.

The government has refused to release transcripts of the Manning court proceedings and has denied 280 out of the 350 media organizations that applied for a press pass. Without a transcript or a press pass, these media organizations have no way of accurately covering the trial. In response, Freedom of the Press Foundation has spent the last month crowd-sourcing donations to fund a team of stenographers to sit in the media room and transcribe the trial for the press and public. Three of our media partners—the Guardian, Forbes, and the Verge—applied for press passes on our behalf, but were denied an additional seat as well.

The coalition's letter asks the military to reconsider its decision and issue two additional press passes so that the court stenographers can transcribe the trial for the press and the public. The transcripts will be posted online less than 12 hours after each day's proceedings.

At least for today, the opening day of the trial, one of the crowd-funded stenographers was granted access to the media room because Nathan Fuller of the Bradley Manning Support Network was gracious enough to lend us his media credentials. This is only a temporary solution though. Do to the grueling nature of the job, ultimately we would need two stenographers to get in so they can do a morning shift and an afternoon shift. And Nathan will need his press pass for himself in the near future. So this letter is very important in making sure the press and public will continue to have access to transcripts of the trial.

You can read the full letter in PDF version here or view the text of the letter below.

Note: The Center for Constitutional Rights has a pending lawsuit in civilian court arguing the First Amendment requires the public be given access to government-produced transcripts of the trial and all unclassified court documents in a timely manner. We strongly agree and many of the members of this coaltion has signed onto an amicus brief in support as well. Unfortunately, this case won't be resolved for at least a month, so getting the crowd-funded stenographers access to the media room is incredibly important until the court rules in CCR's favor.