The Associated Press is trying something it’s never tried before with its coverage of the Sonia Sotomayor hearings.

It’s providing round-the-clock tweets at @AP_Courtside, documenting every move of the hearings, allowing the general public easy access to some of AP’s best talent, and using feedback to direct the coverage itself. And that’s not all.

The Twitter coverage is supplemented by a partnership with Yahoo News, where an extensive blog and collection of related articles is prominently featured on that Web site.

While the AP has embraced Twitter before, never before has it conducted anything of this magnitude in terms of crowdsourcing on a major story, says Gida Hammami of Editors Weblog.

I spoke with Ted Anthony, a national writer/editor for the AP and former foreign correspondent, who is supervising the ongoing Sotomayor Project.

What was the main idea behind it?

“We wanted to conduct an experiment and look at whether we could build community around news content,” he said. “It’s a short-term experiment, not a prototype or anything, but we also wanted to bring in our newspapers and increase discussion.”

Anthony said of Twitter, “It’s becoming a major force in the way people are communicating with each other.” He added that AP wanted to use it “not just because of its increasing relevance to the journalism world, but also the immediate flavor of it.”

A team of eight people is working together on the Sotomayor experiment, including seasoned political reporters, a social media expert, regional news director, and the Washington Bureau Chief himself.

“It’s true that the mainstream media and particularly AP don’t have a lot of experience dipping into the toes of readers, but we’re finding a pool of people who very much want to interact,” Anthony said.

He said not only are they collecting opinions about the story and the coverage itself, but the AP is interested in creating lively conversations between the public and journalists. It’s asked readers for the parts of the story they’re most interested in and tries at every opportunity to send reporters out to dig in.

Anthony said the group has already learned some interesting things.

“I am very delighted with the level of discourse,” he said. “Certainly, there’s skeptics and any experiment should have that, but people for the most part have been very engaging.”

“What’s becoming obvious is people very much want to have a stake in the news and how it’s covered,” he said.

For those critical of Twitter and its limitations, Anthony welcomed the criticism, but he also said he feels the negatives can be overcome:

“People may complain about these new technologies, and say it goes against depth, but we’ve proven with this experiment that if we have good reliable info, even in fragments, we assemble a picture at the end of the day that has relevance and context.”