Tweeting in courtroom provides a new way to cover a murder trial
The Twitter trial seems to be working. So far.
It's a modification of what we began last fall: live updates of a capital murder
trial in the killing of a small-town Kansas sheriff. It was a way of live
blogging from the courtroom. I would email updates from my smartphone and
Bluetooth keyboard and send them back to the online team at the newsroom. They would post them with time stamps.
Readers enjoyed it, but the workflow lagged at times. The copy desk during the day is sparse,
usually one person posting all the updates throughout the day. Metro editors were in meetings all day. I was filing faster than the posts were appearing. That was a snag we were going to have to work out.
This spring, as another big trial loomed, the copy desk said they couldn’t handle another round of live blogging. People are going on vacation. We're short-staffed. There was no time to sort through my updates
each hour.
The trial: Ted Burnett is accused of
killing Chelsea Brooks, a 14-year-old girl who was nine months pregnant, in
June 2006, during a murder-for-hire.
When jury selection began this week, I decided to start
posting updates on Twitter.
Jury selection is usually the most boring part of any
trial.
“This is the part they don’t show on TV, it’s so exciting,”
prosecutor Kevin O’Connor tells jurors.
Most times, we don’t even cover it. But capital murder trials are
different. The juries not only decide
whether a defendant is guilty. If they
return a conviction on capital murder, the jury also decides whether or not the
defendant will receive the death penalty.
With life and death at stake, I like to know who is sitting on the jury.
But jury selection also seemed to be ideal to conduct
experiments. Who would notice? So I began tweeting
portions of the part of the trial no one seems to care about. Most were tidbits that probably wouldn’t make it in any stories I wrote
for the print edition.
Some of the Twitter highlights:
Prosecutor told the judge one
prospective juror "appears to be stoned."
- "I don't know if this is a
legal reason," O'Connor said, "but the state's position is he should
be dismissed because he's a punk."
- Prosecutor: "Do you have any
concerns about the criminal justice system?" Juror: "Some people in
the system are criminals themselves."
- Lawyer: "Do you understand
some of the things you've heard about the case may not be accurate?"
Juror: "Sure, especially from the media."
You get the idea.
I didn't expect the reaction..
I received an email from a Wichita
police officer following the trial on Twitter, saying "Keep it up."
A woman tweeted her friends, “Court
TV is gone but Twitter has @rsylvester.”
(Actually, it’s now “In Session”
on TruTV and I do some work for
them, too).
But this is important to me, becaise
they are local people, looking for local news. They’re not readers or viewers or audience anymore – in this
world of social networking, they’re my friends. I like that.
I keep getting notices that more
people are following me each day.
Jill, my editor, is encouraging me .
Katie, our online content
developer, is working on a widget to put my tweets on Kansas.com, when the trial really gets going.
Here’s what I’m learning:
- Keep it professional. Remain a reporter. Resist the urge to comment or editorialize. Just tell what’s going on and give context.
- Pick the most engaging parts to
report. Remember, I have to take notes
and try not to miss anything important.
I try to Twitter the parts that catch my attention and which I think are
important from my experience on the beat.
Even in capital murder trials, there are lighter moments. But also select the parts that will increase
awareness and knowledge of the event.
- Keep it clean. I mean copy. You
have to proof read yourself. Remember,
there’s no copy desk between you and publishing. And if I remember correctly,
they don’t have time for this, anyway.
- Check to see if anyone is replying. It’s tough to do on a mobile site that isn’t
fully functional, as it is on a desktop.
I post with text messages but occasionally check through the Web to see
if there are any responses. One of my new friends had to
contact me on Facebook to point out I was missing her replies. I also try to go back at the end of the day
and see who I missed. I don’t know if
it’s bad form to reply something like 10 hours later, but I want folks to know
I’m paying attention.
Yes, it’s the same as Intro to
Journalism. Know your audience; get it
right. But in this delivery system it’s live, and it’s fast. I keep reminding myself, I can’t cut
corners. Good journalism should shoot for high standars, even in bits of 140 characters at a time.
And at a limit of 140-character,
Twitter forces you to write tight.
It’s hard work. I leave court feeling exhausted
And it’s only the first week. The intense and exciting part – the real evidence of
the trial - is yet to begin.