Law: the expert view
Court reporting is a dying art – and lawyers should be worried
David Banks
Reporters play an important role within the courts, but financial and time restraints mean they are more endangered than ever
Tue 19 Oct 2010 09.29 EDT First published on Tue 19 Oct 2010 09.29 EDT
Coverage of the Tommy Sheridan perjury trial recently raised questions about court reporting. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
There was a time, not long ago, when a newspaper could rely upon the three Cs of court, crime and council to fill its empty columns each day. Now two threats have emerged that mean the court reporter is more endangered than ever. There are good reasons why lawyers in those courts should worry about this.
The first threat – financial pressures on regional and national newspapers as advertising revenues and circulation figures decline – is well known. As economies were made, court reporters were among the first to be cut.
Marcel Berlins warned of their decline last year. This was echoed by Patrick Moloney QC, who told a media law conference there was no point in a judge making lofty pronouncements if there was no one from the media to report them.
David Holmes, who teaches journalism at the University of Sheffield, told the annual general meeting of the Association of Journalism Educators of the decline in court reporting. He called on academics and journalists to chart this decline and explain its implications.
This retreat from the courts by the press may turn into a rout if the Ministry of Justice's plans to close 103 magistrates courts and 54 county courts goes ahead. It is already difficult for reporters to get time away from their desks to attend court. If their local one closes and its cases are moved further away, the task becomes impossible.
Court reporting is an art. No matter how good the writer, drop them into the Sturm und Drang of a court in full flow and they will struggle to produce something readable, never mind newsworthy.
The experienced court reporter understands proceedings, has a network of contacts in the court and knows the restrictions placed on their reporting if they are to stay on the right side of the law. One only has to look at some of the reporting to come out of the Tommy Sheridan perjury trial to see the dangers posed. For example, the Scotsman referred to "damning" allegations. Whether or not they were damning is for the jury to decide.
The art of court reporting is learned by spending time in the magistrates and crown courts watching cases, writing them up day after day and improving by practice. Financial pressures and court closures mean fewer journalists are getting that practice.
Every term I send my students at Sunderland University to local courts to see for themselves how they operate. They always come back with tales ranging from the horrific, the comic or completely bizarre that ought to find their way into the pages of a paper. Was there a reporter in court with you? I will ask. The answer is invariably no.
Why should the legal profession care about the disappearance of the skilled reporter from their courts? Well, if the reasons of democracy and open justice stated above by Moloney and Berlins are not enough, they ought to think of their own moments of immortality. Case reports on major trials may preserve the judgments and legal precedents set. But in the mundane day-to-day goings-on of the court system, it is the court reporter that turns that base metal into gold.
The nationals will continue to turn out for major trials, especially those with a celebrity link, but that is a tiny fraction of the courts' business. For too many regional papers the temptation to keep reporters at their desk engaged in the "churnalism" derided by Nick Davies in his book Flat Earth News has proved too great.
Anyone who has sat through trials knows there can be long periods of boredom interspersed with moments of excitement. It is the court reporter who captures that excitement and distils it into a few brief paragraphs of high drama, comedy or pathos. That might mean Richard Henriques QC's closing speech in the trial of Harold Shipman, or a bungling burglar in a magistrates court who stole and then hung up his neighbour's curtains.
Lawyers spend many years honing their skills of argument, examination and oratory. It is the court reporter who preserves that for posterity. Lawyers, of all people, should hope they survive.
David Banks is a media law consultant and co-author of McNae's Essential Law for Journalists