Aldon Hynes, the Connecticut-based former Wall Street technologist turned political activist and blogger, has been chosen by the Media Bloggers Association to occupy one of two seats in the Libby trial courtroom reserved for bloggers. The feed is being carried by The Associated Press. (VIEW AP FEED) Assuming the trial is still going on later this month -- and it is expected to be -- he'll be there. Hynes helped put together the multimedia track at MGP2006 in Amherst. Now he's posing the question: "How should bloggers cover the Libby trial?" Can you help him with your thoughts and advice? Here's a link to his own post about this, to which you can add a comment of advice if you first quickly register. If you don't want to register, you can add a comment below, and Aldon will be reading here, as well. Here's the link to read his query and respond: http://www.orient-lodge.com/node/2138
Robert Cox, who heads and founded the Media Bloggers Association,, (also an MGP2006 alum) says he has worked for more than year with the federal court system to arrange the trial, and there are likely to be more coming. "Everybody understands we're under the microscope," says Cox. He says even within The AP there were doubters, but, "we are into our third week and I have to say I am really proud of the stuff going out from our bloggers . . . [the doubters] haven't had any fuel for playing out their concerns." Cox recall one day last week when the judge at the Libby trial announced that Valerie Plame's status at the CIA could not be considered for purpose. Cox was speaking with AP editors at the time and said to them: "Well our blogger just put it up and it went out on your feed and you had it first. They kind of liked that."

Cox says after the Libby trial ends there were be a debriefing session involving AP, federal court and other journalism experts to consider how the coverage worked. "It is a point that I have tried to make in every interview I have done. The press wants to say the barbarians are at the gate -- the bloggers. That's one point of the story. But the second is that the federal courts are recognizing bloggers in their own courtrooms. So what is the precedent for that in federal court decisons? Will it influence their thinking about decisions? I think that is really profound."