John Davidow
"There was a time when the entire town poured into the courtroom to see what was going on. But in modern society we have become more removed from the courts, whilst the media, who were the bridge to the courts, now have less and less resources."

It was this problem that led John Davidow to his award-winning idea, 'Order in the Court 2.0', recognised by the Knight News Challenge last month.

Davidow, who is executive editor of new media for WBUR, was awarded $250,000 by the challenge to help him put to his ideas into practice over the coming year.

"I'm excited about being part of this group of people who are really the most thoughtful and thought provoking group of people studying the media and its interface with new technology at a time when it's critical," he told Journalism.co.uk.

He first came up with the idea to investigate digital models of courtroom reporting after speaking to judges and hearing of the culture clash taking place.

"We have two cultures coming up against each other, from needing to have justice covered in public to the right to a fair trial," he says. "What we need to do is balance off those two things to ensure access. I was in a meeting with judges talking about new media in the courts and during that discussion there was a clear frustration on the part of the judges. They are just winging it.

"To me it seemed like a really good idea to explore and felt like there was a problem to be solved. So I started researching it. An awful lot of things going on around this issue but nothing like what I had in mind."

His next challenge was to find a courtroom which would let him carry out his real-life testing.

"It was suggested that I tried the Quincy District Court just outside of Boston. It has a reputation for innovation. I prepared a presentation for the judge and when I called him he said 'when I heard about this I was going to call you'. So it was like this perfect match of minds and has been like that all the way through."

Once he had the support of the courtroom, all that was left to do was wait for Knight's verdict.

"You go through all of this research and building this body of work and a community, that you may or may not get funding for. It was only the week before the awards were announced that I went to the court to see on the ground what it would involve, because I didn't want to waste anyone's time. Knight plays it so close to the vest that even on the day I got the call, I still wasn't sure. I was really surprised. I have heard from an awful lot of groups around the country; judicial groups, media groups, public media groups, who really feel this is incredibly worthwhile. That's incredibly gratifying that we have been able to tap into something that a lot of people are going to follow."

The project will create a laboratory in the Boston courtroom, to test what the best practices for digital reporting are, from video and audio live streaming to blogging platforms.

Davidow hopes he will eventually be able to establish a basic model of digital reporting to be followed by every court in the country, ensuring a minimum level of access is given to the public.

"Some places wont have the resources (such as bandwidth, or revenue) to handle everything," he told Journalism.co.uk. "But at the same time so much goes on in our courts that the public has no idea of, so even just posting online the court's daily business would increase access enormously. The public has these tools, so another intention of this project is leveraging what's out there and creating better access and consequently increasing greater understanding of how justice is administered in this country, which enriches everyone."

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