A journalism lecturer has called for journalists to be allowed to take photographs and record audio footage during court hearings.
Richard Jones, lecturer in journalism and media at the University of Huddersfield, has made the recommendations after conducting a study into the work of court reporters, mostly those employed by regional dailies.
Richard, pictured, interviewed 22 journalists who cover courts for his study and found that, due to a lack of photographers attending cases, some reporters rely on the courts’ own security staff to keep an eye out for them while they are taking snatch pictures of defendants outside the buildings’ precincts.
In order to address this issue, he has suggested allowing smartphone photography in courtrooms at certain brief times, adding restrictions around the use of audio recorders should also be relaxed.
In a list of recommendations compiled as part of his research, Richard wrote: “In general terms, I suggest that if the government and legal profession are serious about preserving the presence of the media in our courtrooms, it is time to consider a variety of steps to make it easier for reporters to do their jobs.
“Restrictions imposed in the Contempt of Court Act around the use of audio recorders in court should be relaxed. Smartphones can be used silently and so old complaints about noise disruption no longer apply. Permitting journalists to record court proceedings in audio form would allow the creation of source material that could be used in journalistic content, in particular in radio broadcasts or podcasts.
“Letting reporters put their phones on a table in front of a barrister giving an opening, or a judge delivering sentencing remarks, much in the manner of recorders left running at a police or football club press conference, seems an unobtrusive and sensible way of allowing journalists to generate more content from each trial.
“Of greater value in day-to-day news coverage would be a relaxation of the restrictions surrounding photography within court, which have been in place since 1925. Forcing reporters to sneak past defendants in corridors outside courtrooms and surreptitiously try to capture a snatch photograph as they leave the court building, is a nonsense – both because of the poor quality of those images and the potential danger of a criminal taking a dim view of what the journalist has done.
“I suggest allowing smartphone photography in courtrooms at certain brief times, perhaps during the swearing-in of witnesses or the putting of charges to defendants, for example, with a single reporter permitted to discreetly move into the well of the court and snap images at those moments, with photos made available to other journalists present on a pooled basis.”
Other recommendations by Richard include widening the use of video in court reporting following a pilot scheme whereby judges’ sentencing remarks have been filmed in some crown court cases.
He also says press rooms should be mandatory in all courts, as should the presence of designated press seats within each courtroom.
Richard added: “Often, press rooms have been given over to other court users such as solicitors, while not all new courtrooms have a designated press bench.
“Despite the general success in reporters’ use of technology in the courts, the main factor preventing further take up of live text-based coverage is the unreliability of internet access in court buildings. This often varies from courts centre to courts centre and indeed from room to room. Reliable wifi access should be extended to all courtrooms and press rooms.
“The name, age and address of each defendant, and the charges they are facing, ought to be freely available for every case in both the crown and magistrates’ court. That detail should be provided as part of the court lists typically provided as part of the paid-for online subscription services, but also in paper form within the courts, again perhaps left in the official press room as well as pinned up in the corridor.
“Removing the time reporters have to spend chasing up this detail each day from their workloads would be extremely helpful, freeing up a little time which could be spent dealing with the myriad other tasks which form the court journalist’s daily beat.”
Richard has now submitted his research to the Cairncross Review, a government probe led by former economic journalist Dame Frances Cairncross into the “sustainability” of the UK’s printed press.
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Why not recommend more professional photographers rather than reporters with smartphones? That would be far more beneficial to the industry!
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“Forcing reporters to sneak past defendants in corridors outside courtrooms and surreptitiously try to capture a snatch photograph as they leave the court building, is a nonsense – both because of the poor quality of those images and the potential danger of a criminal taking a dim view of what the journalist has done.”
This is why professional press photographers shoot snatches with a long lens, well away from the court precinct and a potential charge of Contempt, as well as reducing the risk of incurring the wrath of the defendant.
Re smartphone photography in court, I can only imagine the reaction of an already nervous, perhaps unwilling witness having a smartphone shoved in their face while they’re being sworn in. What nonsense.
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The ban on audio recording is frankly ridiculous and nonsensical.
A reporter is allowed to take a verbatim account of the testimony via shorthand and then publish that verbatim account. They are even allowed to then read that verbatim account aloud on a radio show or a podcast. Yet they are not allowed to take that same verbatim account with a dictaphone, straight from the witness in court. Why not? It’s the same verbatim testimony. And it is MORE reliably accurate than shorthand.
Our legal system is quite laughable in its stuffiness and insistence on adhering to outdated traditions. Why do our barristers and judges still have to wear those silly wigs and gowns? They cost an absolute fortune and financially cripple trainee barristers, who are already tens of thousands in debt by that point. American lawyers do just fine without them, as do lawyers in British magistrates’ courts. In fact, judges even permit barristers to remove them in British crown courts if the weather is hot, demonstrating that there is absolutely no need for them at all.
Why are all new judges still issued with the little black hat they used to have to put on when sentencing defendants to death? How much is that costing us? Because you just know they’re being manufactured by somebody like Ede and Ravenscroft. I guarantee we aren’t buying them in for £1 each. They’re going to be costing an arm and a leg – for something they legally can’t even use. It’s ludicrous.
Even the way the lawyers have to cowtow to the judges is ridiculous. Why do they have to call the judge ‘Your Honour’? Wouldn’t ‘sir’ suffice?
The whole system is steeped in classism and elitism. We need to sling out all the stuffy ridiculousness.
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@Disgruntled Toggy
We can all agree that professional photographers would be better, but we all know why a return to the good old days isn’t going to happen. My concern is that given the thirst of the internet for pictures on all stories, and the difficulty in getting them for court stories, we need to find ways to make it easier for court reporting to continue.
@ElectricPics
Again, we all know that professional photographers would be better, but if a paper has only one on staff these days, they’re only going to turn up for the really big cases, not the day in and day out court coverage which I hope we can find ways to preserve.
I’d recommend smartphone photography of defendants in the main. Judges and magistrates could certainly restrict whether that would be appropriate for, say, certain witnesses. But I’d say it would be justifiable in some cases. My submission suggests doing this from the well of the court rather than ‘in their face’, again to avoid that sense of physical intrusion.
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Have mixed feelings about all this. Covered many courts during my 50 years as a reporter. There was always a press bench. Do agree that the names and addresses of defendants should be easily accessible. Increasingly found that you had to approach the court clerk for addresses and not all were willing to provide them. The aim of the gowns and wigs was to give the court a certain aura.
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@wordsmith
Yes, the experiences of the reporters I spoke to really vary from place to place. Some will get those names and addresses as a matter of course while others, even if they have worked at the same court day in and day out for years, always have to make a written request of the court clerk every day – and don’t always get the information they need.
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@TwisV
Yes, the reason for excluding audio recorders in the Contempt of Court Act (the issue was discussed at the time) was because of the noise of those old-style tape decks people used to use. That argument doesn’t apply anymore, and I think it’s time to revisit it.
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@ Richard Jones As a professional photographer I don’t want to make life easier for reporters to take pictures mainly for my sake but also for theirs. Accepting a continual lowering of standards shouldn’t be the way forward. Reporters should refuse to take snatch pictures, citing the possible risks to themselves. It is quite possible that this may happen when a reporter is badly injured by a defendant.
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This is just going to punish freelancers and press agencies who actually bother to employ snappers.
Why they should they suffer so the ‘destroy and exit’ MDs of local paper groups can continue to make cuts, grandstand about how they care about news and then swap jobs with each other.
If you don’t employ photographers you get rubbish pictures – deal with it.
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@Disgruntled Toggy
Yes I’m sure an incident when a reporter is attacked would change thinking around having them take snatch pictures as they do now. But it’s very hard for an individual journalist to refuse to take a photo, even on safety grounds. I don’t think every editor would be sympathetic to that, to say the least.
I take the point about accepting a lowering of standards. I suppose my thinking here is that newspapers have already accepted it, by getting reporters to take blurry phone pictures on the steps of courts around the country, and publishing those daily. I’d like to find ways to help maintain standards by keeping reporters in courtrooms, rather than having them rely on CPS or police press releases.
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@hackattack
Yes I don’t disagree with sometimes criticising the bosses of regional news companies. But I’m more concerned with the daily run of court reporting here. The days of freelancers or agencies attending a local crown or magistrates’ court every day are virtually over, with the odd exception. They only turn up for the big cases they might be able to sell nationally – fair enough – but those are the cases which will probably still be covered by local paper reporters anyway. It’s trying to maintain daily coverage of courts that I think is important and worth preserving. But this won’t just happen because we want it to. Making it easier for court reporters to do their jobs would really help.
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THE law says an employer has a duty of care to employees. I have been on jobs where a TV cameraman has been provided with a “minder” by his employer, very few occasions admittedly but presumably because his employer knew if he was injured they could be liable especially if the employee had asked for a risk assessment. I imagine many reporters and photographers laughing at this, possibly very difficult, scenario, as would I until recently! However, if every journalist joined the union and then refused en masse to snatch pictures of defendants then an editor might just decide it would be less bother to employ a photographer. I say do whatever is required to save press photographer’s jobs and improve standards at the same time! Start by joining the NUJ!
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Ohhhhh. An academic proffering advice!
Tell you what me old mucker – join us at the coalface.
It’s a tad different from safety of the lecture theatre. 😉
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“the thirst for pictures”. So what? Lets not turn serious court hearings into infotainment. Bearing in mind how many newspapers cover court cases (nip in and out and grab a few juicy quotes and almost never attend every day) I can see some pretty unbalanced reporting on video and audio should anyone be crazy enough to allow it.
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