Time for citizen journalists to fight back

Two news stories recently, one from both sides of the Atlantic, have shown that citizen journalists are increasingly vulnerable attack from legal avenues. If, like me, you are a citizen journalist or at least somebody struggling to make their way in journalism as a citizen then how can you protect yourself and the growing group you are part of?


6 months and counting...


Blogger Josh Wolf has been in prison for more than six months in San Francisco for contempt of court. He shot a video of a San Francisco demonstration against a Group of Eight summit meeting in Scotland in July 2005. During the disturbances a policeman was injured and a police car attacked. Federal prosecutors started to investigate the case and Wolf's video was viewed as potential evidence.

He refused to hand over both the video and testify in any case, contending that his video showed only interviews with protesters, not evidence of any crime. Wolf contended that there was an ‘implied trust' between him and his interviewees. He said, in an interview with PBS that "there was a trust established between people involved in the organization that I was covering and myself . . . that what I chose to release was what I chose to release, and that I wasn't an investigator for the state."

During the case the presiding judge, U.S. District Judge William Alsup, referred to Wolf as an "alleged journalist". U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan also described Wolf as "simply a person with a video camera who happened to record some public events." If Wolf was a journalist than Californian state law (although not federal law) might afford him some protection. So, there are legalistic implications to the definition of Wolf's status and there are wider implications too.

The first point to note is that Wolf actively sought out the ‘public event' and even conducted interviews so he cannot in all honesty be categorised in the same place as say a passer-by who happened to record the events. Conversely, a long and worthy history of footage and stories written and shot by actual participants, whether accidental or not, in events being submitted to established news media exists. However, none of them were journalists although they did bring ‘news' to the people and therefore would fit the criteria of Wolf's defence attorney to be considered as such (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17509218/). In actual fact Wolf did not ‘bring the news to the people', he played a part in its production and that is exactly what a journalist does.

However, he is certainly not a professional one and this is the nub of the matter; just because somebody does not do something professionally does that mean they are not something? Previously definition would have been no problem as a journalist would be defined by his profession, it would be as easy as categorising an electrician as an electrician. The internet has allowed for amateur journalism to expand its scope vastly; this is both good in that it allows for the flowering of diversity and talent that might otherwise have gone unnoticed but it also presents existing notions, institutions and indeed legal systems with the challenge of adapting to both protect the rights of this ‘new breed' and also to prevent abuse of the power of the new media.



French lessons


Meanwhile, France's Constitutional Court approved a law banning citizens from filming violence; the penalty for breaking it can include up-to five years in prison and a fine of 75,000 Euros. It was proposed by presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy perhaps in an early bid to capture some populist moral conservative kudos. It was touted as an attempt to clamp down on ‘happy slapping' - a teenage prank where a complete stranger is slapped and reaction is filmed. However, a French George Holliday (the bystander who videoed the infamous beating of Rodney King) would now be culpable under this new law and be facing five years in prison himself.

The lesson here is simply that the state cannot be trusted to regulate the internet without seeking to extend it's own power. Of course, this will always be claimed to be in the interests of the people but the reality is that state's always act first and foremost to preserve themselves, often from the people. Politicians such as Sarkozy will seize on uglier aspects of the internet and exploit them to win support for laws that may appear reasonable but in fact extend state power unreasonably. Britain's Times is considered a ‘small ‘c' conservative' newspaper but even it's commentator was forced to describe the new law as "broad worded" and point out that "democratic societies and totalitarian states hold an equally deep suspicion of citizen journalists" (http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article1484826.ece?openComment=true).

Citizen journlists have to remember something crucial; they are the people and often are better placed to act as their tribune than politicians. However, this does not mean an abrogration of ethics or that self-agenderising should be raison d etere of citizen journalism. Indeed, it should be guided by to be the tribune of the people and not to work in opposition to existing news media but in partnership. A complex relationship exists between the three parties but in principle they have more in commen than they do with the state.

However, state bodies and exisiting media have one advantage over citizen journalist's; namely, organisation. Citizen journalist's spread themselves across different sites and contact between them is minimal and confined to the social and the discursive. Organisations like Reporters without Borders do an admirable job of fighting for press freedom and certainly they defend citizen journalists under that remit however can anybody reading this name an organisation, that would have to be web-based and transnational by nature, that specifically seeks to represent the interests of citizen journalists in their various states and on the world-stage? It would have to be voluntary by nature but seek to establish both a guiding ethos for citizen journalism and would spearhead the response of citizen journalism to the increaseing hostility of state organisations.

The formation of such an organisation is long overdue.