Trial by media : the megaspectacle and the competition of narratives : the framing of the Oscar Pistorius murder trial by News24
In the early hours of 14 February 2013, the twittersphere erupted with the allegation that Oscar Pistorius, the Olympic and Paralympic athlete, had shot and killed his girlfriend of three months, Reeva Steenkamp. This story first appeared on the Beeld twitter account. This story was only confirmed by local print media such as the Cape Argus the following day, 15 February 2013, after his first court appearance during which he was charged with premeditated murder, a schedule 6 offence, according to South African law. The commencement of the bail application was postponed by Chief Magistrate Desmond Nair on 15 February 2013, so as to consider an application made by the media to be granted leave to broadcast the court proceedings live. In Magistrate Nair‟s judgement, that was handed down at noon the same day, he ruled against the media‟s broadcast application. However, he conceded that only the live audio of the bail application judgement could be broadcast ("Oscar faces murder…", 2013: 1). Additionally, the media was allowed to photograph the accused only in the presence of Magistrate Nair before the commencement of court proceedings, and once it had concluded for the day. This was the first formal assertion, and acknowledgement, of the role the media was to play in the „staging‟ of The Oscar Pistorius Murder Trial, with Pistorius cast as the protagonist and the media contingent as one of the antagonists of the narrative construction of this case. In an attempt to compensate for the lack of direct (live) media access to the proceedings, twitter was co-opted as the primary alternative news media platform. Journalists tweeted the live proceedings to their followers in order to provide mediated access to the proceedings. News24 lead the twitter reports by compiling a transcribed "live report" of the proceedings which would allow members of their audience an opportunity to follow a sequential account of the narrative. This was in addition to their usual journalistic reportage of the trial.
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