All Blog Posts from Public Eye

One issue we've been keeping our eye on here is the implications of the increasingly blurring lines between regular citizens engaged in reporting and traditional journalists. Josh Wolf, who calls himself a journalist as well as an activist, spent more than seven months in federal prison for not turning over videotape of a San Francisco street protest. Student Jamal Albarghouti's cell phone footage of the Virginia Tech tragedy, which was played on CNN repeatedly, had us wondering whether citizen journalists might someday put themselves at risk in their quest to cover a story.

Now comes news that journalists were beaten by police at the Los Angeles immigration protests – and part of the reason may be that police couldn't distinguish between traditional journalists and citizen journalists who were also there as activists. Via Lost Remote, here's some pretty amazing video of journalists, both traditional and self-styled, fleeing baton-wielding officers, some of whom struck those holding video cameras.

The police are being investigated for their conduct in the case, which L.A. Police Chief William Bratton has called "inappropriate."

"Our national anchor was being pushed by the batons," Reporter Marcia Garcia of the Spanish-language Telemundo 52 told KCAL-TV, according to the Associated Press. "Our TV set was destroyed — monitors, cables, everything on the ground — it was like a surrealistic nightmare."

Here's a bit more from the AP story:

KPCC radio reporter Patricia Nazario said she was hit in the back and ribs with a baton, then hit her head and twisted her ankle while falling from a blow. She described an interaction with an officer who was hitting her.

"'Why did you hit me? I'm a reporter?'" Nazario recounted Wednesday during an interview on her station. "And he hit me again, harder that time, and I fell; and I fell on the dirt and my phone flew like about 12 feet in front of me."

According to the L.A. Times, some news organizations are considering legal action.

Jill Leovy's excellent eyewitness account of what happened may shed some light on why police acted as they did towards journalists.

Read full post…