Alison Gow: Would live court reporting work in the UK?
April 2nd, 2009Posted by Laura Oliver in Editors' pick, Legal
A Florida judge has ruled that journalists can report court cases in real time – though they will not allowed blog, text or Twitter from the court room itself.
Alison Gow asks if such a change in the rules would work in the UK.
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April 2nd, 2009 at 9:34 am
This has fascinating possibilities; it could mean that contemporaneous notes/reporting from the courtroom – normally covered by qualified privilege if it meets the legal requirements – would no longer be archived and guarded by one source.
That might mean that alternative versions of a courtroom statement would have equal legal status even if they differed slightly, or even substantially.
Additionally, it might also mean that open courts truly become open courts, with free access to proceedings available to all in a form only mediated by the initial transcriber/journalist. We’d all have our own copies of content from the court.
Which is good, because it means you’re getting a view from the court that has only been filtered by one person, and not re-interpreted and repeatedly translated from note form to final published piece, etc.
On the other hand – the story is perilously close to April 1.
Jon
April 2nd, 2009 at 9:37 am
Fortunately the original report from Florida was March 24
– http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2009/03/24/0324fedorder.html