The State Bar of Michigan's Law and the Media Committee will host its fifth "Newsroom Seminar" at The Observer & Eccentric Newspapers in Birmingham, Michigan on Monday, February 26, 2001. The hour-long seminar is designed to give journalists practical and useful tips on news coverage of the legal system.

"The presentation will aim to address some of the common practical and substantive difficulties that journalists may encounter in covering the legal system in Michigan," said Thomas H. Howlett, chairperson of the State Bar's Law & Media Committee and attorney at the Googasian Firm, P.C. in Bloomfield Hills.

The Birmingham seminar will be presented by several members of the Bar's Law and the Media Committee. Each presenter is an attorney as well as a current or former journalist. The panel includes:

• Eric Freedman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former Detroit News reporter and current Michigan State University journalism professor;

• Michael Walsh, a reporter for the Muskegon Chronicle and recent Cooley Law School graduate;

• Tom Rombach, a Macomb County trial attorney who formerly worked for the Dearborn Press Guide and Dearborn Times Herald; and

• Tom Howlett, an attorney at the Googasian Firm, P.C. in Bloomfield Hills who formerly worked as a reporter with The Dallas Morning News.

Oakland County District Judge Leo Bowman will also serve as a presenter offering his perspectives from the bench.

Each newsroom seminar features hypothetical fact situations and the presenters encourage participation by the news staff. Each presentation is followed by a discussion and question and answer session.

The Committee's first newsroom seminar was held in April 1999 at Lansing's TV-6 followed by seminars at WOOD-TV 8 in Grand Rapids in early December 1999, WWMT-TV Channel 3 in Kalamazoo in March 2000, and Flint's TV-12 in May 2000.

Plans are currently underway for future seminars in various locations throughout Michigan including a seminar in conjunction with the Michigan Press Association in November.