[HN Gopher] The Old Bailey with Britain's last court reporters
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       The Old Bailey with Britain's last court reporters
        
       Author : pepys
       Score  : 48 points
       Date   : 2024-07-11 19:10 UTC (4 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
        
       | rwmj wrote:
       | As local newspapers across the country have collapsed, there are
       | almost no dedicated court reporters left. That's a problem
       | because important cases in the public interest aren't being
       | covered. It's not clear how to fix this. The courts aren't
       | streamed (in fact you can't take a photo in one else you'll go to
       | prison), and for fairness we probably don't want that. Citizen
       | journalists exist but have a patchy record at best. There are
       | very complex restrictions on reporting and if you make the wrong
       | details public you can and will go to jail for it. Publicly
       | funded court reporting? Governments aren't keen on that either.
        
         | LeoPanthera wrote:
         | > The courts aren't streamed
         | 
         | In the UK, many courts are streamed, including civil courts,
         | crown court, and the supreme court.
         | 
         | https://www.judiciary.uk/the-court-of-appeal-civil-division-...
         | 
         | https://www.supremecourt.uk/live/court-01.html
         | 
         | https://insidehmcts.blog.gov.uk/2022/08/19/broadcasting-from...
        
       | masfuerte wrote:
       | Their web site:
       | 
       | https://courtnewsuk.co.uk/
       | 
       | From the article:
       | 
       | > If Toyn puts up a story about rape or sexual assault, using any
       | of those words, the story will be buried by Google. To ensure his
       | stories remain visible, he has to word many crimes
       | euphemistically. As a lover of language in its specificity and
       | extremity, and as a journalist who believes in reporting what
       | actually happens in society, Toyn finds this outrageous. "What
       | are we going to say, rape doesn't exist?"
        
         | sandworm101 wrote:
         | >> What are we going to say, rape doesn't exist?
         | 
         | Exactly. Many jurisdictions removed it from the books decades
         | ago. Its exact definitions were always problematic. Now it is
         | more often described as one end of a s-assault continuum.
        
           | kwhitefoot wrote:
           | > Many jurisdictions removed it from the books
           | 
           | But not the jurisdiction in question.
           | 
           | "Rape is a statutory offence in England and Wales. The
           | offence is created by section 1 of the Sexual Offences Act
           | 2003: "
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_English_law
        
           | darby_nine wrote:
           | I can't think of a serious reason why rape would have a
           | different colloquial meaning than sexual assault. It's just a
           | more provocative term.
        
             | loloquwowndueo wrote:
             | Rape is only one kind of sexual assault. It's not just one
             | term being more "provocative" than the other.
        
       | JohnMakin wrote:
       | This article uses the term "court reporter" which in the US may
       | actually refer to a court's stenographer, which does not appear
       | to be the same thing this article is talking about.
        
         | ghaff wrote:
         | Yeah, I would have taken this to mean the court stenographer
         | absent reading further.
         | 
         | This is really just a story about a broader lack of local news
         | reporting because no one wants to pay for it in general. My
         | small town had a rather good local newspaper back in the day
         | (which I subscribed to) but it was a labor of love and the
         | publisher became ill so now there's nothing unless it's
         | sufficient news that it hits the big city paper about 50 miles
         | away or at least some regional website.
        
           | JohnMakin wrote:
           | Thanks for further clarification - I got downvoted initially,
           | was a bit confusing, and I only made this parent comment
           | because after reading the title I was hoping it would be
           | about the impact of improvements to voice-to-text technology
           | has had on the profession of court stenographers (the ones
           | typing on those weird machines that look like they're
           | straight out of the 80's). This was also an interesting read
           | though.
        
             | ghaff wrote:
             | That would have been my assumption as well just reading the
             | headline. To which my reaction would have been "Good enough
             | for government work" for a court proceeding?
        
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       (page generated 2024-07-15 23:01 UTC)