Court News Florida Launches, Bringing Together News from Courts Across the State

Courts are expected to communicate regularly with a spectrum of different audiences, both internal and external.  In order for judges and judicial branch employees to do their jobs, courts must provide them with timely news and information about court operations and procedures; and court users, judicial branch partners, funding sources, the public, and the media count on the courts to convey relevant, up-to-date information, data, advisories, and news items.  Until recently, however, even people who work in Florida’s judicial branch had limited resources for readily finding out about events, programs, and activities taking place in courts across the state.  To get the information one sought, one might have to visit up to 27 different state courts websites (those of the supreme court, the five district courts of appeal, the 20 circuits, and the Office of the State Courts Administrator).  With the launch of Court News Florida (CNF) in January 2021, court audiences can now access current news and information about all levels of the state’s judicial branch from a single, convenient source.   

The idea for CNF has its roots in a Conference of Court Public Information Officers annual meeting—an opportunity for court communicators from across the world to share their ideas and learn about what other courts are doing.  When court public information officers (PIOs) from Florida learned about Court News Ohio, a lightbulb went off.  Through a collaboration of the Florida Supreme Court, the Florida Office of the State Courts Administrator, and the Florida Court PIOs—shepherded and cheerlead by Ms Tricia Knox, one of the Florida Supreme Court PIOs—plans for developing an aggregated court news site for Florida began to take form.  The timing was actually auspicious, for the 2016-2021 Long-Range Strategic Plan for the Florida Judicial Branch had just been released, and among the plan’s emphases is the importance of communicating court-related information clearly to everyone, using a variety of communication methods (Long-Range Issue 3, Improve Understanding of the Judicial Process). 

Soon thereafter came the publication of the branch-wide communication plan, Delivering Our Message: Court Communication Plan for the Judicial Branch of Florida 2016: created to advance the communication-related objectives of the long-range plan, it focuses extensively on strategies for making information accessible and understandable to all audiences.  CNF was shaped largely in response to several goals identified in the communication plan.  CNF helps to enhance public trust and confidence in Florida’s courts (Strategic Issue I) by “educat[ing] the public about the purposes, roles, responsibilities, and decisions of the judicial branch by improving outreach efforts.”  By “maximiz[ing] the use of technology to advance court communication efforts“ that “promote new and existing court programs and services, educational programs, and judicial branch success stories,” CNF bolsters the courts’ communication methods (Strategic Issue III).  And CNF supports court efforts to strengthen internal communication (Strategic Issue IV) by providing a venue for “regular and consistent information sharing.”

CNF Stories are organized into four groupings: New Features, News by Category, News by Court/Circuit, and News by County.  Readers can also sort by tags (recently, the popular tags include COVID and the Courts; COVID News; Virtual Courts; Court Operations; Inspired Resourcefulness Series; Remote Hearings; Emergency/Administrative Orders; Jury Trials; Chief Justice; and Bar Exam).  And a News Archive, organized by month, is available for those who want to review prior posts.  The site also offers enhanced search capabilities, including live search using AI technology.  Readers are invited to follow Court News Florida on social media: Twitter (courtnewsFL); Facebook (courtnewsflorida); LinkedIn (court-news-florida); and RSS Feed.  But for those who prefer having the news come directly to their inbox, a subscription to receive the Weekly News Highlights is the way to go. 

Since CNF went live, Florida’s court PIOs have been working energetically to share their courts’ news and stories on this site: between January 29 (when the site went live) and May 25, they contributed 128 news posts.  As Ms Sara Miles, FCPIO President and Twentieth Circuit PIO, noted, “Newsworthy events happen in our courts on a regular basis.  We are committed to making them as accessible as possible.  Court News Florida brings it all together and makes it easy to share our news with the media, public, judges, and court employees.”  And Mr. Craig Waters, director of the Florida Supreme Court Public Information Office, added, “The introduction of Court News Florida will prove to be a watershed event for the judicial branch just like the debuts of our first website starting in 1994, of our livestreaming of court arguments starting in 1997, and of our use of social media to communicate better with the public we serve starting in 2009.”