The Daily Outrage

bmattock

bmattock

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And the beat (down) goes on...

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

http://uk.pressgazette.co.uk/article/060406/photographer_is_arrested_taking_pictures_of_police

Photographer is arrested taking pictures of police

By Dominic Ponsford

A freelance photographer has been arrested and charged with obstructing the police after taking pictures of armed officers in central Nottingham.

Alan Lodge was left unable to carry out his job after having a mobile phone and camera confiscated. He says the police action flies in the face of a protocol on dealing with the press which was agreed with the force just a month ago.

Ironically, Lodge was involved in the Nottingham NUJ branch committee which helped draw up the guidelines — number seven of which states: "Police officers do not have the authority to prevent a person taking a photograph or to confiscate cameras or film, and such conduct could result in criminal, civil or disciplinary action."

The NUJ has provided Lodge with a rented camera and phone while it continues to campaign for the return of his property.

According to the Nottingham NUJ branch, he was in the St Ann's area of Nottingham on 19 March when he saw armed police on an operation and started to photograph them.

Nottingham NUJ branch secretary Kevin Stanley said: "They approached him and asked him to stop taking photos. He said no, ‘I'm in a public place and I'm not breaking the law'."

Lodge was then arrested and charged with "wilfully obstructing a police officer". He appeared in court last week and was released on bail to appear again on 2 May.

Nottinghamshire Police is one of only a very few forces in the country to have agreed a set of guidelines on how to deal with journalists.

The agreement states: "The media has a legitimate role to play in informing the public and they will attend the scene of incidents. The presence of a photographer or reporter at an incident does not of itself constitute any unlawful obstruction or interference."

Stanley said: "Before these guidelines were issued there was a tendency for journalists in Nottinghamshire to be prevented from doing their jobs by police officers who didn't necessarily know the rules and that journalists are only there to do a job.

"There was always a feeling that press and photographers were there for intrusive purposes rather than reporting purposes — especially when it came to the scene of an accident or a murder.

"This incident makes a mockery of the guidelines that the chief constable signed up to at the beginning of the year."

Nottinghamshire Police declined to comment while court proceedings are ongoing and the matter is sub judice.
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Perhaps they had the Merry Men in custody, and still had to dismantle the Time Machine, which is property of some MI-5 subdivision?
 
I'd be screaming about my 1st Amemdment rights...they'd be laughing and reminding me that "I wasn't in Kansas anymore."

Well, at least this guy will get to be a test case for the rules he just help make.
 
dazedgonebye said:
I'd be screaming about my 1st Amemdment rights...they'd be laughing and reminding me that "I wasn't in Kansas anymore."

Well, at least this guy will get to be a test case for the rules he just help make.
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Yes, one of those things that bites me from time to time - when I set foot outside the USA, my rights don't travel with me. Every country is different, and we have to play by their rules when we're in their country.

Still, I'd like it if photographers, no matter where they work, were left to do their jobs without bullying, threats, or arrest.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
 
I don't think that this kind of behavior (which *really* makes me angry, at least when it takes place in the U.S.) has much to do with rights or priveleges or cooperation or any of these broader concerns. It has to do with two things: 1) The police don't like being photographed because they're afraid their actions might put them in a bad light even if they don't deserve it -- and, in fact, they have some reason to believe that this can happen, and that is the fault of media people who always use the most spectacular photogaph and often don't provide the context to explain it. On the other hand, they don't like it even when they *do* deserve it. The Rodney King situation in Los Angeles proved to them just what a photograph or a film could do to them -- cops lost their jobs, I think some were tried for criminal offenses, a good part of the city was burned down, etc. 2) Police are part of quasi-military organizations built on command and control (that is, authority) and police forces tend to attract people who like that kind of life. They don't mind being ordered around by people they see as higher ranked, but they *do not* like being challenged by people who they believe should be following *their* orders. Put those factors together with the fact that cops are often not the brightest people -- especially those of the bottom ranks -- and you get problems.

When I say it makes me angry especially in the U.S., it's because the U.S. has a specific written Constitution which makes it clear that certain kinds of behavior -- freedom of speech, assembly, movement, etc. -- are highly priveleged. They're not absolute (you can't shout fire in a crowded theater) but they are near-absolute. When the cops bust a photographer (and I don't care whether he's professional or amateur, or working for a newspaper or only for himself) they are essentially violating something that's a lot more important than any petty law they may be setting out to enforce. If some guy is peddling drugs, so what? If you catch him, put him in jail; if you don't, well, that's just one of millions you haven't caught. But when the cops feel free to violate the most basic rights of innocent people, then we have a serious problem.

I don't know that the same applies in England, where "rights" depend much more on a shifting sense of the law and tradition-- which is one reason we threw the blighters out of here 200 years ago.

JC
 
Hard to disagree with much of that. It is human nature after all.

The rules (Constitution) exists exactly as a counter to those human tendancies. The world as it is has just moved photographers more in to the hairy edge where rule meets nature, and rights, as well as people, get hurt.

John Camp said:
I don't think that this kind of behavior (which *really* makes me angry, at least when it takes place in the U.S.) has much to do with rights or priveleges or cooperation or any of these broader concerns. It has to do with two things: 1) The police don't like being photographed because they're afraid their actions might put them in a bad light even if they don't deserve it -- and, in fact, they have some reason to believe that this can happen, and that is the fault of media people who always use the most spectacular photogaph and often don't provide the context to explain it. On the other hand, they don't like it even when they *do* deserve it. The Rodney King situation in Los Angeles proved to them just what a photograph or a film could do to them -- cops lost their jobs, I think some were tried for criminal offenses, a good part of the city was burned down, etc. 2) Police are part of quasi-military organizations built on command and control (that is, authority) and police forces tend to attract people who like that kind of life. They don't mind being ordered around by people they see as higher ranked, but they *do not* like being challenged by people who they believe should be following *their* orders. Put those factors together with the fact that cops are often not the brightest people -- especially those of the bottom ranks -- and you get problems.

When I say it makes me angry especially in the U.S., it's because the U.S. has a specific written Constitution which makes it clear that certain kinds of behavior -- freedom of speech, assembly, movement, etc. -- are highly priveleged. They're not absolute (you can't shout fire in a crowded theater) but they are near-absolute. When the cops bust a photographer (and I don't care whether he's professional or amateur, or working for a newspaper or only for himself) they are essentially violating something that's a lot more important than any petty law they may be setting out to enforce. If some guy is peddling drugs, so what? If you catch him, put him in jail; if you don't, well, that's just one of millions you haven't caught. But when the cops feel free to violate the most basic rights of innocent people, then we have a serious problem.

I don't know that the same applies in England, where "rights" depend much more on a shifting sense of the law and tradition-- which is one reason we threw the blighters out of here 200 years ago.

JC
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I expect most people would except that by having the freedom to photograph and report an event would imply a duty to be fair and impartial, at some point you end up protecting the right for someone to produce propaganda. Mr Lodge’s site http://tash.dns2go.com/stopwar.htm and the organisation http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/static/mission.html he works for, I think I’ll wait on what the magistrates have to say about the incident before I swallow the NUJ’s line completely.
 
The whole story will no doubt be interesting. Public sector officials often have their hands tied as to what they can or cannot say in defense of their actions while private parties can rant all they want to the media. On the other hand, anything that puts the government at a disadvantage is ok with me.

As an aside...I wholeheartedly support the right for someone, anyone, to publish propaganda. Otherwise you have to get a few of us together to decide what is truth and what is not, so we can suppress anything that does not qualify.

Fair and impartial is a standard you can't get 3 people in the media to agree upon, much less live up to.

Sparrow said:
I expect most people would except that by having the freedom to photograph and report an event would imply a duty to be fair and impartial, at some point you end up protecting the right for someone to produce propaganda. Mr Lodge’s site http://tash.dns2go.com/stopwar.htm and the organisation http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/static/mission.html he works for, I think I’ll wait on what the magistrates have to say about the incident before I swallow the NUJ’s line completely.
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As an aside...I wholeheartedly support the right for someone, anyone, to publish propaganda. Otherwise you have to get a few of us together to decide what is truth and what is not, so we can suppress anything that does not qualify.

Fair and impartial is a standard you can't get 3 people in the media to agree upon, much less live up to.
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Propaganda is fine as long as it’s not masquerading as truth

I would think “fair and impartial” should be a proper goal to set oneself, I wouldn’t want it imposing on me, I’m speculating as to weather Mr Lodge is a deserving the unqualified support he’s getting here
 
Sparrow said:
Propaganda is fine as long as it’s not masquerading as truth

I would think “fair and impartial” should be a proper goal to set oneself, I wouldn’t want it imposing on me, I’m speculating as to weather Mr Lodge is a deserving the unqualified support he’s getting here
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I'll have to read your links. One side is never enough.

All propaganda masquerades as truth.

I remember watching the news as a kid and seeing the section where they would display "Commentary" over the news guy's head. Just because they stopped displaying that notice, doesn't mean they've stopped doing commentary.
 
Regardless of political bent, everyone has the right to photograph in public unmolested by the authorities.
 
I'll have to read your links. One side is never enough.

All propaganda masquerades as truth.

I remember watching the news as a kid and seeing the section where they would display "Commentary" over the news guy's head. Just because they stopped displaying that notice, doesn't mean they've stopped doing commentary.
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One side? I read the post, goggled the names and decided not to jump to the consensus conclusion. All propaganda may masquerades as truth should that makes it proper?
In my youth commentary was, and still is, a sacking offence on the BBC, and my few months of experience of US news doesn’t qualify me to comment on yours.
 
Sparrow said:
One side? I read the post, goggled the names and decided not to jump to the consensus conclusion. All propaganda may masquerades as truth should that makes it proper?
In my youth commentary was, and still is, a sacking offence on the BBC, and my few months of experience of US news doesn’t qualify me to comment on yours.
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I'm not disagreeing with you. My comment on your links was meant to say that I'd only seen one side and should read up on the subject.
As for commentary...it seems to me that very little news is objective simply because that is such a hard goal to obtain and I don't particularly trust the media to really try all that hard to obtain it.
No, it's not really proper for lies to masquerade as truth, but I'm resigned to the fact that the liars are unlikely to declare themselves. Perhaps it doesn't really matter though, partisans on all sides of an issue will tend to mix lies with truth till they themselves can't tell the difference.

It's hard to be too cynical...but I'm trying.
 
Steve
I wasn’t arguing the establishment view, not my style at all, just saying as an armature truth should be the aim, and not just a bland acceptance of a stereotype, the community seemed to have judged the issue by hearsay.
 
Sparrow said:
Steve
I wasn’t arguing the establishment view, not my style at all, just saying as an armature truth should be the aim, and not just a bland acceptance of a stereotype, the community seemed to have judged the issue by hearsay.
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I agree. Certainly it's our natural impulse to side with the guy with the camera.
 
The only time I’ve ever had a problem taking pics was in the 70’s from pros when my 100mm zuko put me between them and the action, (the NF and the Anti Nazi league im Bradford)
 
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