KU News Release

Valerie Plame and Judith Miller to address 21st annual Media and the Law Seminar

LAWRENCE — Two people at the center of the four-year federal investigation into the media’s disclosure of a CIA officer’s identity will join a group of distinguished panelists to discuss censorship and other media concerns.

Valerie Plame Wilson, the former CIA officer whose identity was disclosed in 2003, and Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter who went to jail rather than disclose her source, will address the 21st annual Media and the Law Seminar, titled “Fourth Estate or Fifth Wheel: Government Curbs on Free Speech,” on Friday, April, 18 at the InterContinental Kansas City Hotel at the Plaza in Kansas City Mo. The seminar regularly draws about 300 members of the legal and journalism professions from throughout the country.

Five expert panels will discuss topics taken from today’s headlines: executive branch constraints on free speech; reporter’s privileges; the implications of defamation actions by judges; how celebrities try to restrict speech; and free speech rights of judges. Each panel will be followed by a 10-minute question-and-answer session.

Other panelists include Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Laura Denvir Stith; Deanell Reece Tacha, chief judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit; and Janet Berry, judge, Second Judicial District Court, state of Nevada.

Ted Rall, syndicated cartoonist and American Association of Editorial Cartoonists president, will present a luncheon speech. His cartoons have appeared in 140 publications. He has hosted radio shows, published three collections of cartoons, writes a weekly op-ed column and has written several prose and graphic books. His topics focus on unemployment and underemployment, the environment and popular culture.

Kansas and Missouri lawyers can receive continuing legal education credit. The Missouri and Kansas continuing legal education commissions have approved seven credit hours, including one hour of ethics in Kansas.

The seminar is sponsored by the University of Kansas School of Law; the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association Media Law Committee; the American Bar Association TIPS Media, Privacy and Defamation Law Committee; and KU Continuing Education. Contributors are Media/Professional Insurance, First Media Insurance Specialists Inc., Universal Press Syndicate and the Kansas City Star.

For complete details and registration, visit www.continuinged.ku.edu; call 877-404-5823; or e-mail kuce@ku.edu

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