Twitter and the courtroom: our experiment in a murder trial
Followers of the Dispatch on Twitter (@dispatchnow) may have noticed our experiment in following the murder trial of Wendy Manthe using this micro-blogging service over the last two days.
Manthe is an East London mother who starngled her two young daughters to death and it is a trial which has gripped our community. You can catch the stories on this trial here.
We tried it earlier during the pleading stage of the trial which I wrote about on this blog at the time. I believe this was a first for SA journalism and now we are at the sentencing stage of the trial and DispatchOnline news editor Jan Hennop has been trying it again - this time really pushing the limits of what micro-blogging can do.
During Monday's testimony when Manthe took the stand Jan gave a blow-by-blow account of the unfolding court drama which I personally found riveting. It was far more comprehensive than the earlier attempt and I felt as if I was in court hearing the evidence as it unfolded.
Here is a small sample. It obviously runs in reverse chronological order like a blog.
dispatchnow Manthe: I went to pick my kids up from school. When I saw them they were so happy to see me. #manthe
dispatchnow Justice Pickering upheld the objection. #manthe
dispatchnow Objection. #manthe
dispatchnow Prosecution: Are you saying to this court that you were so afraid of Faye that you would kill your own children? #manthe
It was interesting to watch the discussion with my colleagues in my editor's conference later in the day.
Many of us there had been following Jan's tweets closely and it led to an animated discussion about the strength of Manthe's testimony , the judge's questions to her and the performance of the prosecution. I believe we were more informed about this trial than ever thanks to this coverage.
I think this is a brilliant way to ensure that justice is seen to be done and to take a broader audience into the realities of the justice system in South Africa.
W e had many positive responses to the coverage and, in fact, some users commented on the later blog posts based on their following the trial by Twitter.
Here's an example:
Rose on 18 August, 2009 at 12:50 pm CAT #
<!--
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//-->Following the story on Twitter, Wendy says that a few days after the murders she just wanted to die. What about now? Is she feeling all better about it already? The girls are outta sight, outta mind so that makes everything ok, doesn’t it Wendy?
In short order the blog post had 63 comments.
I think this shows how effective Twitter can be as a journalistic tool to pull an audience into our rolling news cycle:
1. Hook them with Twitter;
2. Engage them with blogs and multi-media;
3. Offer detail and context in print.
But it also opens up a new world of potential for publishing and reporting in this country.
The one thing we are not short of here is courtroom drama and it strikes me that you could create endless and gripping content using twitter and blogging together from SA's courtrooms. This is definitely something that we will be trying more of.
Not everyone liked it, however.
@IvoVegter commented on Twitter: "True, it's a worthwhile experiment, but it doesn't work for me." He indicated in an earlier post that he found the feed overwhelming.
Jude Murtherine of Rhodes University's New Media Lab responded on Twitter:
newmediajude @ivovegter @janhennop @andrewtrench Journos have to advance microblog practice based on experience & tests; while users should filter
Both are interesting views.
Clearly the emergence of these technologies and potential new reporting techniques offers as many challenges to the audience as they do to the journalists.
I'd be interested to hear more views or suggestions on how this might be refined if we do more of it.
One thing that is interesting from a technical point of view - and could perhaps provide a commercial opportunity for Twitter - is that Jan very quickly ran out of his allotted API calls per hour doing this.
Twitter could offer pro-tweeters a commercial package with a higher ceiling on the API calls. PS: Twitter, if you do this I expect my usual fee 
August 20th, 2009 - 08:23
Hehehe… Thanks for the kind words boss. Let me just say that without Andrew’s guidance, we would have still been stuck in the online dark ages, as it was he who first got us tweeting.
Personally, it’s been fun twittering from court and I found it a very good reference tool to go back to when I wrote my stories for the blog.
In effect it’s a double whammy:
Not only does it tell the audience out there what’s happening in court, but it also gave the journalist a chance to make notes electronically for later reference! I love it.