Advocating courtroom Twitter reporting
Jan 23, 2011 – South China Morning Post reported on developments in the UK, Australia, Canada and the U.S. allowing reporters to “tweet” live from courtrooms in covering ongoing cases and quoted Doreen Weisenhaus, Associate Professor and Director of the Media Law Project, who advocated that Hong Kong reporters be allowed to conduct Twitter reporting to promote openness in the courts. “The truth is, text-based reporting is no different to what reporters do, which is taking notes. It’s just extending the reporting that a journalist can do,” Weisenhaus said. “If it is in furtherance of fair and accurate reporting, then it’s a good thing.”
SCMP reported that the Judiciary in Hong Kong was “watching overseas developments closely after a groundbreaking ruling in Britain” in which a UK judge in December 2010 ”allowed journalists to use Twitter and other electronic means to update the outside world during the bail hearing of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.” Shortly thereafter, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales issued interim guidelines on the “use of live text-based forms of communications.”
