OpenCourt: Transparency in the Court

Tuesday, November 29, 12:30 pm
Berkman Center, 23 Everett Street, Second Floor

OpenCourt aims to create a model for judicial transparency in the U.S as envisioned by our Founders. This Knight News Challenge pilot project streams live daily coverage and posts it onto the Internet daily. The project seeks to make courts more accessible to the public through technology while respecting legitimate concerns about privacy.

Our streaming and archive videos represent a firehose of information. How do we increase the value of this raw footage -- by helping people use it, by contextualizing the content and meta-data such as subject tags to better organize and increase access to the information gathered.

Other challenges we face are how to scale up beyond a single courtroom and how to make the project sustainable.

About

John Davidow, Executive Producer

John Davidow was named WBUR’s executive editor of new media in July of 2009, where he has overseen the growth of the award-winning wbur.org. John joined WBUR as news director/managing editor in 2003 after spending more than two decades as a journalist in Boston. John’s work has been recognized with national and regional awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association, the Associated Press and UPI. He has also been the recipient of a number of regional Emmy Awards. Davidow graduated from Tufts University with a bachelor’s in economics.

Joe Spurr, Director

Joe Spurr is a multimedia journalist and a web developer. Before coming to WBUR, he was the staff web developer for San Diego’s NPR station, which he helped completely overhaul in 2009. He pioneered the station’s adoption of Twitter and Google “My Maps” which culminated during the 2007 California wildfires, built layered, interactive maps to help track the drug-related murder surge in Tijuana, and produced in a roving, three-person skeleton crew from the DNC and RNC in 2008. Joe is a Boston native, a graduate of Northeastern University, and a former freelance reporter at the Boston Globe.

Val Wang, Producer

Val Wang is an experienced writer and multimedia producer who has worked for Reuters Television, NBC News, and UNICEF in both New York and Beijing. She has also developed and produced documentaries airing on PBS, National Geographic Channel, and The History Channel. Val graduated from Williams College and has an MA from the Writing Seminars of The Johns Hopkins University. A recent transplant to Boston, she is excited to get an in-depth look into a unique corner of the city as well as into our nation’s judicial system.

Download media from this event here.