Traditional and new media in legal reporting

Traditional media is a nonelectronic medium of mass communication, it is the traditional means of communication, interaction and transfer of expressions and beliefs from one generation to another. Traditional media is a means of communication and expression that has existed since time immemorial.

These are modes of communication that the people are accustomed to traditionally for sources of information and entertainment. Research shows that traditional media represents a form of communication employing vocal, verbal, musical and visual folk art forms, transmitted to a society or group of societies from one generation to another.

A traditional media form can be anything which does the purpose of communication in your family, friends and the society as a whole from storytelling, dancing, sculpture, painting, to legal reporting in the legal system.

In mass communication, traditional media takes the form of newspapers, television, radios, and law reports in the case of legal reporting. These forms of communication were effective means of communication before the coming of the internet.

Traditional media are indigenous modes and have served the society as tools/ medium of communication for ages, that’s why some judges still prefer the traditional means of legal reporting to the new media reporting. This is as a result of long usage and adaptability to the old ways of information dissemination, making it difficult to fully accept the new media in legal reporting.

Take for instance, the Nigerian Weekly Law Reports cited as N.W.L.R, a popular legal report that has serviced the legal industry for over two decades, to which judges, legal practitioners and several others have become accustomed.

With the coming of the internet (new media), legal reporters devised a means to make legal reporting easy and accessible to judges and legal practitioners at the comfort of a laptop, e.g Law Pavilion.

The new media (electronic communication like social media and social networks) have created newer ways to communicate, many of which we could not have imagined two decades ago in the legal industry, and many more innovations to come as technology advances to levels that we cannot envision today. The new media makes use of innovative technologies and combines them with already existing features to form Internet services which can be used by legal reporters to make legal reporting easier and accessible to all concerned.

Beyond the use for individual communication, the new media today serves as an indispensable tool for the work of legal reporting, because Internet and mobile technologies are at the centre of how legal professionals’ relationship to law reports is changing.

The legal industry and the legal system are slowly adapting to the emergence of electronic law reports, and so legal reporters ought to comprehend how to report court proceedings both in traditional media and the new media.

For a legal reporter to effectively transform legal reporting to electronic format, such legal reporter must be I.C.T (Information and Communications Technology) compliant. Such legal reporter must be able to transform analogue (long hand written) court proceedings to soft copy using a desktop or laptop, and upload same adequately and accurately to a platform that can be accessed by the intended end users.

Due to the technicality attached to electronic law reporting, its new and novel nature, many practitioners are selective of the electronic law reports they resort to for reference and precedents, as such a legal reporter venturing into this area of legal reporting ought to report in accordance to international standards, ensuring that information captured in the hard copy law reports are also captured with accuracy in the soft copy.

The advantages of electronic law reports over hard copy law report are: 1, Electronic law reports have a wider outreach than hardcopy law reports that have to be purchased from a particular law vendor; 2, electronic law reports are cheaper and faster to access than hardcopies, all it takes to get an electronic report is internet data and a law reporting site, some require subscription, others do not; 3, electronic law reports are more mobile than hardcopy law reports. Multiple law reports on electronic format can easily be carried around than ten (10) copies of Hardcopy law reports; 4, electronic law reports are accessible anywhere in the world unlike hard copy law reports.

With the coming of Information and Communications Technology, the judiciary and legal professional ought to transform the mode of legal reporting to fit the current trend and catch up with advanced legal communities.

Godspeed!

Do send your comment(s),observation(s) and recommendation(s) to danielbulusson@gmail.com or like us on www.facebook.com/ theadvocatewithdanielbulusson