A police force is carrying out a ‘tweet-a-thon’ from a magistrates’ court in a bid to reassure the public that justice is being done after what it claims is a decline in reporting by local papers.
West Midlands Police is carrying out the experiment today where five press officers are using Twitter to provide updates from Birmingham Magistrates’ Court on cases ranging from shoplifting to assaulting a police officer.
It said the tweet-a-thon was being held to increase interest from the public in what happens in court in the wake of a decline in reporting by local newspapers.
The move comes after Greater Manchester Police posted details on Twitter of every call it received during a 24-hour period last October, with the 3,000 tweets analysed by journalists from the Manchester Evening News.
Garry Forsyth, assistant chief constable at West Midlands Police, said the initiative aimed to show that “police work doesn’t end following an arrest or even when a suspect is charged”.
He said: “We hope that the ‘tweet-a-thon’ will give people a flavour for the range of offenders we deal with, an insight into the court system, and importantly, peace of mind that justice is being done.”
Ch Supt Stephen Anderson told the BBC News website: “We’ve seen over recent years a bit of a decline in court reporting, particularly through local newspapers as they’ve faced their own financial constraints.
“That’s tended to result in the general public not knowing what happens in court and what the outcomes at courts are.”
Well done to the police. When I moved to a paper in the East Midlands in 2007, I was shocked to here a reporter wasn’t sent to mags court. There were plenty of reporters in the office bashing out mindless nibs and pic captions, but it seemed the notion of using court stories in a local newspaper had been totally overlooked. Strange world.
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yes, I made a typo, meant to say ‘discover’, not ‘here’…
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I hate to say it, but good for West Mids police. I do hope this shames the local papers into covering more court cases.
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Yes newspapers are to blame for decline in court reporting, with pressure on stories per reporter per day; but more culpable are courts and lawyers who delay, prevaricate, and adjourn the vast majority of cases for months and months, so there is no return on investment in reporter time. Not good for justice either as criminals don’t relate punishment to crime committed up to a year previously. Whole system is a shambles.
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