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Still, some observers are puzzled why e-mails would be OK, but tweets are out of order. The judge, Miller explained, believes that having reporters constantly hunched over their phones pecking out tweets is more disruptive than sending an email every 10 or 15 minutes. "We have been dealing with this issue of tweeting in court a lot these days
-- but this is an approach I have never heard of before. It's weird," said Lucy Dalglish, director of the Virginia-based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. She wondered if there wasn't a greater risk of inaccuracies when reporters at the scene e-mailed colleagues at news bureaus, who then put their own interpretation on emailed text and published it on websites or their own Twitter accounts. Radio journalist Jennifer Fuller is equally perplexed. "We've been taking notes in courts for years," said Fuller, president of the Illinois News Broadcasters Association. "If a dozen reporters put their heads down to start writing at the same time, couldn't you say that's as disruptive as tweeting?" It's not just Twitter's potential to distract. Other judges worry that tweets about evidence could pop up uninvited on jurors' cellphones, possibly tainting the panel. In their request for a new trial, attorneys for Texas financier R. Allen Stanford, who was convicted of fraud last month, argued that tweeting by reporters distracted jurors and created other risks. The federal judge denied the request without explanation. And a Kansas judge last week declared a mistrial after a Topeka Capital-Journal reporter tweeted a photo that included the grainy profile of a juror hearing a murder case. The judge had permitted camera phones in court but said no photos were to be taken of jurors. Reporter Ann Marie Bush hadn't realized one juror was in view, Publisher Gregg Ireland said, adding that the company "regrets the error and loss of the court's time." Journalists understand judges' concerns, Dalglish said. But the better solution is for courts to do what they have done for decades
-- tell jurors not to follow news on their case, including by switching off their Twitter feeds. One obstacle to reaching a consensus is that no one can agree on just what Twitter is or does. Some judges say it's broadcasting, like TV, which is banned from courtrooms in some states. Fuller says tweets are more like notes that get shared. Because Twitter has become the medium through which some consumers get most of their news, it's all the more urgent for judges and journalists to come to an accommodation, Fuller said. And her association's policy on tweeting in court? "We don't have one yet," she said. "We're working at it. Finding a middle ground will take time."
[Associated
Press;
Associated Press writer Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pa., contributed to this report.
Michael Tarm can be reached at http://twitter.com/mtarm.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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