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New rule could end tweets from trials statewide: Policy would bar electronic devices in courthouses Anonymous 02/22/10(Mon)11:24 No.199515  

By Tricia Bishop
February 22, 2010

A judiciary rules committee plans to adopt a statewide policy next month that would likely prohibit people from taking communications devices - including cell phones and computers - into Maryland courthouses.

The move raises issues of inconvenience for the public and access for journalists, who use their handhelds to post information to blogs and social media sites such as Twitter from courthouse hallways, not to mention conduct interviews and call their editors.

"By shutting this down, you're really shutting down information," said Ron Sylvester, a Wichita ( Kansas) Eagle reporter who has spent the past two years live-Tweeting trials. At the end of the day, he could have 200 Twitter posts filed - three times the information he will publish in the Kansas paper.

A Baltimore judge last month banned posts to such sites from the Circuit Court, as Mayor Sheila Dixon's much-Tweeted corruption case wrapped up. And though the rule targeted media, it affected everyone. This new ban would be much wider.