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: Lawbeat

Twittering trials: More access than we need?

By Mark Obbie

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Bob Ambrogi (crediting Social Media Law Student) posted a newsy, link-filled report on a Wichita Eagle courts reporter, Ron Sylvester, who's admirably pushing the envelope of public access to the courts. With links to stories from the Boulder Daily Camera and Colorado Independent, Ambrogi tipped me off that Sylvester had won the right to "tweet" from a locally newsworthy trial scheduled to start Monday. Translation for the tragically unhip: one tweets on Twitter, with brief bursts of words that can tell a micro-audience of friends what you're doing at the moment, or (in Sylvester's case) can theoretically tell Wichita readers what just happened in court. This isn't Sylvester's first foray into trial-tweeting, according to other useful links in Ambrogi's post.Sylvester's blog, What the Judge Ate for Breakfast, is pretty standard stuff. I get it, and applaud him for making the extra effort to inform his audience. But the tweets? Meh. Herewith a representative sample (I swear) from a hearing he covered today involving something important having to do with Kansas abortion doctors -- though I couldn't quite tell what from the tweetflow:

Monnat is using transcripts from the federal trial to question Kline. about 8 hours ago from txtMonnat is asking Kline why he only sought abortion patient records, looking for child abuse and not records of reported STDs in the state. about 8 hours ago from txtThe law said those records were attainable via court order. about 8 hours ago from txtKline said he thought those records were unattainable by subpoena. Monnat asked him to read the law. about 8 hours ago from txtMonatt: Did you ever seek AIDS or HIV records of teens? Kline: "No, we did not." about 8 hours ago from txtKline: We sought records of information we had on doctors who weren't reporting. about 8 hours ago from txt

Except it's harder to read than that, because it's in reverse chronological order. Is it just because I'm old, or is that crap? I vote for crap. You'd have to read a real story to get up to speed on who's who and what's what, so that you maybe get and care about what he's saying. Sylvester has passion and backbone to do what he's doing. Good on him. Possibly this makes sense to those who drink their data in a spray rather than a linear stream. Me? I'm hoping the Wichita Eagle sticks around to publish stories with ledes and context.

Full post as published by Lawbeat on January 06, 2009 (boomark / email).