Interview with Ron Sylvester about using Twitter as a reporting tool

Ron Sylvester is a court reporter for The Wichita Eagle and Kansas.com, but that’s not how he would describe himself.

He’s a multimedia reporter. He’s been a reporter for more than 30 years, and yet he is more innovative and willing to try new things than most journalism students and recent graduates.

“I think it’s something that anyone can use if they’re open to it,” he said about social networking tools. “Throughout my career, I’ve always been looking for new tools. I want to see how people are using different networks to pass information, because my job is to pass information.”

His use of Twitter to cover trials may change how trials are covered in the 21st century. He originally started covering trials on Twitter earlier this year as a what if. What would happen if we covered trials live via Twitter?

“We started this in jury selection because jury selection is one of the most boring parts of a trial,” he said about starting conservatively. “We actually started getting some response.”

Within a few days the American Bar Association’s online journal interviewed him about his use of Twitter. It went from only a few people knowing that he was tweeting to all the judges and lawyers of this trial asking what Twitter was all about.

After that, the Eagle started promoting his Twitter coverage with refers in the paper and by embedding his Twitter feed into various parts of Kansas.com and his blog.

“By the end of the trial we were getting a lot of reaction from readers,” he said. “People said they were sitting at work, refreshing the page over and over again to keep up with the trial.”

In the past, there were only two real ways to get information about a trial. Some judges would allow video cameras in their courtrooms, while others would not. This meant that either people could try to make sense of the hours of live video or they could read about each day’s proceedings after they happened.

“For traditional print, it kind of puts us back in the game,” he said. “It allows us to cover the courts live.”

Now people can follow along on Twitter to find out what is happening during each day of a trial. So, how is this innovative? Many people have told Sylvester that they prefer his tweets to the live television coverage of the current trial he is covering.

Instead of sorting through hours of television coverage, people get succinct 140-character-or-less summaries of what is happening, and people can easily go back and read what he tweeted earlier. Sylvester also provides context that a live feed can’t provide. For instance, he might tweet about what a lawyer is trying to accomplish during cross examination.

“I was giving them summaries, and I was kind of filtering the information for them,” he said. “To lay people, court proceedings can be pretty confusing sometimes, even if you sit and watch the whole thing. I think Twitter puts things into context for people.”

But here is the money question: How does Twitter fit in with Sylvester’s work flow? He produces content for the Web and print. Isn’t Twitter just one more thing for him to do each day?

Twitter makes Sylvester more efficient. He uses his Twitter feed as a rough draft. It’s like a notebook, except better.

“It serves as kind of my notebook, but the notes are in complete sentences,” he said. “It actually makes the filing of the print story quicker.”

This is a must-listen podcast, and this write up does not do the podcast justice. Find out why you should strongly consider using Twitter as a reporting tool.

Click here to stream the interview. Or download the MP3.