ABSTRACT
A core mission of sections of the print media has been to provide a ‘journal of record’, a comprehensive and impartial record of the operation of civic society, to allow citizens to participate meaningfully in representative democracy. This included providing timely, accurate, balanced and clear reports of court proceedings. However, there is evidence that this mission has been eroded, in part as a result of challenges to the traditional advertising-based business model of the mainstream media, the advent of new media platforms and changes to the ways in which audiences consume media content, and the content they consume. As suburban magistrates’ courts go uncovered by the media and even higher courts are thinly covered, this chapter draws on the Civic Impact of Journalism Research Project in Australia to address the gap in empirical evidence on the nature of these changes; how they interact with changes in media technology; and how all this is impacting on the public functions traditionally fulfilled by court reporting, and the principle of open justice. It examines the state of court reporting through the analysis of interviews conducted with court reporters, judicial officers and others involved in the court system in Victoria, Australia. We argue that the findings provide powerful evidence that court reporting matters and the survival of journal of record functions should be of great public concern.
