The decline of court reporting is undermining public confidence in the justice system, the co-author of Essential Law for Journalists warned today

Mark Hanna, who has prouced a new edition of the leading media law textbook, is calling for urgent research to be carried out into declining media coverage of court cases.

He said: “Anecdotal evidence seems overwhelming that within most cities, towns and regions fewer court cases are being reported, year-on-year.

“This is worrying. Communities need to be reassured, through reporting, that justice is being done, and to learn when the system and police are imperfect.”

Mr Hanna said court reporting faced major threats not just from redundancies and cutbacks in the media, but also from what he called “a remorseless accumulation of statute affecting in bits and pieces what can be published.”

His comments come in the week that the Press Association announced a pilot project in Merseyside to provide “public servce journalism” such as court and council coverage.

The soon-to-be-published 20th edition of McNae has been radically redesigned, to include not just the most recent statutes but also to further reflect legal and ethical issues arising from convergence and website publication, for example in the fields of privacy and libel.

The book, known affectionately as The Bible by journalists, will be published by Oxford University Press at the end of July.

Two NCTJ trainees who achieved top marks in recent NCTJ media law exams will be presented with prizes at the seminar.

Christopher Richards of the Welwyn and Hatfield Times, who trained at noSWeat Journalism Training, and David Seymour of the Boston Standard, who trained at Darlington College, will receive their prizes which are sponsored by OUP and Johnston Press.

Comments

Realist (10/07/2009 12:16:07)
It will stay like that while papers employ so many trainees because they are dirt cheap instead of paying for experienced seniors who although paid a pittance are more expensive.
The kids are bright (brighter and more energetic in many cases than some of the old salts) but there is absolutely no substitute for experience when it comes to legals.
It’s no secret in the trade that juniors have been covering cases unsupervised.
The other crucial point is court work is incredibly labour intensive.
With many papers running say 400 word limits on stories and few reporters is it worth having someone spending all day (or days) on one story when they might “knock out” three page leads in the same time.
Sorry to be a downer, but that’s life in the modern media army for those lucky (?)enough to still have a job.

I Love JP (10/07/2009 13:01:49)
I would do court reporting but can’t get the handcuffs off chaining me to the desk. Just got free! Now, which way is court? Oh, Johnston Press have made another reporter redundant. Better get back to the desk!

Megi Rychlikova (10/07/2009 16:26:53)
Junior reporters on my paper used to spend six months in a district office. While there, they spent one day a week down at the local magistrates getting a solid grounding in court work. But district offices are no more, and the juniors are in head office all the time with little chance to get into court. Yet reliable court reporting is essential from a business point of view because crime stories are often the most read in the paper/on the website, not to mention the public interest in justice being seen to be done.