The trial centered on the July 2003 murder of five local residents, three of them young children. The murders initially attracted national media attention but by February 2007, when the trial was due to start, national interest had dwindled. Locally, however, the story was big. The accused, Vincent Brothers, was a former teacher and vice principal in Bakersfield, and a well-known public figure.

An idea. As the trial approached, Californian editors discussed how best to cover it. Jenner and his editorial team were proud of beating television news and even local bloggers. A Californian reporter blogging from the courtroom, he thought, would be a great idea. Jenner says he wanted the trial blogs to resemble the daily blogging from a Los Angeles Times reporter who had covered the 2006 Tour de France. “There was a buzz,” he says of the race blog. “It was the color, how it felt to be in the race. I wanted our blog to be more sights and sounds.” For his part, Web Editor McHenry planned a special webpage off of Bakersfield.com dedicated to the trial, from which readers could link to a frequently updated blog. McHenry envisioned “10 vignettes” a day from the courtroom.

Jessica Logan was the paper’s court reporter and had written stories on the Brothers pre-trial motions and other court proceedings. She reported directly to News Editor Christine Peterson on the city desk. Logan had already covered one long murder trial for the Californian , often calling in story updates to the newsroom from her cell phone. She would be covering the Brothers trial, and was the obvious choice to write a blog as well.

The trial was scheduled to start on February 21 and was expected to last three months. On February 13, Web Editor McHenry asked Logan to blog on the trial twice a day and to strategize with Swenson on how to make it work. He wrote:

Jessica, what I want from you is little tidbits from the court that don’t make it into stories. We can just package these as "court notes" or something like that. This is when one of the lawyers zings another lawyer, or maybe Vincent Brothers doing something interesting etc. ^[10]

Logan replied that “[it] will be painfully easy to have two fresh items up a day,” but observed that in her experience so far covering trials, “I can’t think of anything that I haven’t put in the paper… But if something comes up, I’ll be sure to put it in.” In addition to the blog, she would file her daily and Sunday stories as usual. Swenson would physically post Logan’s items to the blog. McHenry suggested that Swenson, too, “might want to post your own comments about the trial as it goes along.” ^[11]

On Wednesday, February 14, the Bakersfield.com website announced the trial blog. It promised that the blog would link readers to the latest stories and videos concerning the trial. Interested readers could go first to Bakersfield.com, which highlighted news updates on the trial. From the main website, readers could then click on the link to a separate “special section” or webpage devoted to the trial, and labeled “The Trial of Vincent Brothers.” This comprehensive webpage would collect all of the crime and trial stories, as well as provide links to photos, timelines, victim and juror profiles, the crime scene map, videos from the trial—and the trial blog. ^[12] On the blog page, headlined “The People vs. Vincent Brothers,” readers could scroll through blog entries and comment on them.

Hand-held device . Meanwhile, Logan and her editors discussed what technology would allow her to blog from the courtroom. Logan in early February suggested using an electronic hand-held device. ^[13] She felt the new technology had several advantages over calling into the newsroom from a cell phone. For one, she would not have to leave the courtroom—which was necessary to make a call. Another benefit was that other reporters could use it for future stories. Also, Kern County Superior Court Judge Michael Bush had not banned the use of a hand-held, though he did bar still cameras from the courtroom. He allowed a video camera to record the trial proceedings for a pool of reporters, including television stations and the paper’s Bakersfield.com website. But there was no live feed; the video was to be viewed, edited, and posted only at day’s end.

As it happened, the trial started before the Californian team reached any conclusion on what brand of hand-held to use. In the meantime, Logan had begun to worry about three other issues. The first was how she would manage to follow complex trial proceedings while also writing blog entries. The second was the possible confusion the blog, with its presumably more informal voice, might cause readers of her newspaper stories. The final issue involved conflicting signals from editors.