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Suggested
Steering Committee Activities for Standard 4.4
The
specific questions appended to Measure 4.4.1
should be addressed by the steering committee if either Measure 4.4.1 or Measure
4.4.2 is completed. These questions help the committee determine whether
the court’s policies regarding responsiveness to media inquiries are
consistent with its values. The data produced for one or all of the three
measures for this standard are considered by the steering committee within
the standard framework of facilitated group techniques for idea and
consensus building. The three issues to focus the steering committee’s
deliberations for these measures should be:
1.
What do we want to inform the public about? What are our public information
objectives?
Either
NGT or Ideawriting is suitable for addressing this question. The outcome of
this step should be a short, prioritized list of items the group agrees are
the court’s most important public information objectives.
2.
How are we informing the public about our programs now and who is doing it?
With
this question, the steering committee considers whether the court is
informing the public about the most relevant issues and using the right
people to deliver the information. The facilitator may wish to guide the
steering committee’s discussion by asking them to respond to the following
prompt: What did you find most striking in the data and reports you read
about the court’s public information activities? (For example, is public
information a coordinated effort? Is the effort balanced in terms of who is
involved? Are the needs of elected judges balanced with the need to present
information about the entire court?) Any problems with the court’s
performance in this area should emerge during this discussion.
3.
What action should the court take to improve public information practices?
Consideration
of this question moves the court from performance evaluation to action
planning. Here, the answers to the first question (what do we want the
public to be informed about) are considered in light of practical
considerations: What are the most feasible and effective steps we can take
to improve the court’s communications with the public?
Finally,
the steering committee should include in its deliberations on this measure
any findings from work done in relation to Standard 4.1, Independence and
Comity, that appear to call for the court to take a more active role in
educating the public about its responsibility to maintain the court’s
independence and about the circumstances that threaten that independence.
Go
to Standard 4.1
Go
to Standard 4.4
Go
to Measure 4.4.1
Go
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