I was discussing photojournalist and journalist rights in light of Occupy Wall Street, San Francisco, Philadelphia, etc. My photography friend Angela mentioned this link: photojournalist arrested.
A photographer covering an occupy demonstration in Milwaukee is arrested while taking photos of a protestor being detained. In the WISN TV story that follows the video, it states,
"Wednesday's arrest comes a little more than a month after officers arrested a photojournalist from WITI-TV at a fire scene.
The photojournalist was being told to move back from the scene of a fire despite members of the public standing closer to the scene than he was. When he questioned police about his placement, he was taken into custody."
Let's discuss. Does anyone see anything wrong with this? What separates photojournalists from citizen journalists? Does a press badge grant freedom? We are learning about laws and where photos are allowed. Was this photographer wrong for photographing the action on a public street?
It worries me to see police detaining someone covering news-- citizen or reporter--because information must reach the public. What reasons do you think they have to silence the media?
Mutual understanding: We will not post any photo taken from Ranger assignment BEFORE it is published. When posting photos of Ranger assignments, we will put credit as such: Mary Jane/The Ranger in red right next to or under the photo.
There are many reasons for the police to arrest photojournalists, one of the reason could be that they think the photojournalists aggravate the situation by just being there. They want to get rid of us. This is the what we always said, we can't avoid involving because we can't help being part of it because we are physically there. The only thing we can do is to cut the influence of us being there to the minimum. And be very careful that you don't do anything against the law to give the police an excuse to arrest you. Such as climbing up a telephone pole or on top of someone's car or blocking the road. They will find every way to arrest you if you give them a good reason to.
ReplyDeleteDr. Lo