Inside the Supreme Court crash course for tomorrow’s journos
The NSW Supreme Court is teaching court reporting to journalism students with the help of former judge Richard Button. Capital Brief sat in on the latest lecture.
Who better to teach a “court reporting masterclass” than a judge? That was the thinking of the NSW Supreme Court as it looked for ways to help journalists cover trials.
Richard Button, who served on the court from 2012 to 2024, volunteered and has since lectured three groups of university students, with more sessions planned over the next year.
Button had the blessing of NSW Chief Justice Andrew Bell to use the Banco Court for his most recent talk last month. About 60 journalism students from the University of Technology Sydney attended, along with Capital Brief.
It came just a week after Bell publicly criticised media coverage of the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal’s decision to uphold the ruling not to jail a police officer who tasered 95-year-old Clare Nowland in a nursing home in 2023.
