Despite uncertainty over who's a legal commentator or journalist and who isn't, Lord Judge's guidance shouldn't lead to problems

Today's guidance on the use of Twitter from the courts of England and Wales says that a member of the public wishing to use a mobile phone or similar device to send live text-based reports must ask permission first. They can make a formal application to the court or ask informally through court staff.

The guidance continues:

It is presumed that a representative of the media or a legal commentator using live, text-based communications from court does not pose a danger of interference to the proper administration of justice in the individual case. This is because the most obvious purpose of permitting the use of live, text-based communications would be to enable the media to produce fair and accurate reports of the proceedings. As such, a representative of the media or a legal commentator who wishes to use live, text-based communications from court may do so without making an application to the court.
Why should journalists be treated differently from the public at large? Lord Judge, the lord chief justice, made his thinking clear at the news conference he gave last week. "The difference is that John and Jane Citizen are less likely to understand the rules of contempt than most journalists who come into my court," he said carefully.

The importance of this distinction can be seen from a fascinating account written by Steven Morris, the Guardian reporter who covered the Vincent Tabak trial both on Twitter and in more traditional Guardian formats. Morris says he took care to ensure each tweet he sent was not in contempt of court.

He also says: "Before I tweeted the guilty verdict, I double-checked that I had heard it correctly with a friend from a rival newspaper." This may seem unnecessary, but it was a rule I always followed when breaking a story as a broadcast journalist. A former colleague who failed to do this - mishearing and then misreporting a judge's sentencing remarks - is no longer working in journalism.

Who, though, is covered by the phrase "a representative of the media or a legal commentator"? It is not defined in the guidance. On Twitter this morning, people were asking whether they - and bloggers - would be covered.

"Legal commentator" happens to be the term I use to describe myself. As a freelance journalist, I am arguably not a "representative of the media" in the same way as a staff reporter or someone on a full-time retainer from a news organisation. All staff reporters are journalists, but you don't have to work for a news organisation to be a reporter. Journalism is not a profession. You must not describe yourself a solicitor or barrister unless you have been awarded that title by a professional body. But anyone can call themselves a journalist - or a legal commentator.

I don't believe that today's guidance suggests that journalism is to become a regulated profession following the Leveson inquiry. That, I suggest, would be a breach of article 10 of the human rights convention, the right to freedom of expression. But nor do I think the guidance is going to cause problems in practice. If you have enough legal or journalistic training to report court proceedings consistently with the laws of contempt, you come within the guidance. If you don't, you need to ask permission. If there's any doubt, the judge will have to decide.

And if you really don't know what you're doing, like the hapless tourist who took a photograph in court on his mobile phone last month, then you probably shouldn't be tweeting anyway.