Are They Truly That Stupid?

I got this from a good friend today:

“Dear Friend,
Jailing journalists is unacceptable in a democracy. But that’s exactly what is happening at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Award winning journalist and host of “Democracy Now” Amy Goodman was arrested by St. Paul police while covering a protest outside the Republican National Convention. Though clearly identified as press, Goodman was charged with “obstruction of a legal process and interference with a ‘peace officer.’” Two of her producers were arrested for “suspicion of felony riot.”
To tell you that this arrest was brutal and upsetting simply doesn’t do it justice. Watch this video to see for yourself. Then take action.
I just e-mailed the presidents of CNN and NBC News (which oversees MSNBC) to demand that their networks cover this important story. I hope you will too.
Please have a look and take action.”

Well, I watched the video and this was my reply:

“C’mon. You know me well enough to know that I don’t take this stuff lightly (being in the media myself). But this video shows she was arrested for violating a police perimiter. She was clearly offered the opportunity to avoid arrest following the directions of the officers (and from my point of view that was relatively mild treatment of a suspect). Of particular note is that someone in the background was yelling “release the accredited journalist now". Problem is, the officer was still trying to just get her back behind the perimiter line. To me it appears that an activist journalist was intentionally trying to get arrested, probably for the publicity, but I’ll post the video, plus your comments on my blog and let the viewer make up their own mind.

I was in law enforcement for 8 years and have since been in the media for over 20 years now and, contrary to popular belief, journalists are not entitled to unfettered acces to wherever we think we need to go. There are activists in every field who will push the envelope just to cause a scene and get arrested for the publicity, and there are those who are responsible reporters who will just report the news and not try to make it.

The fact that the mainstream media is not reporting on the alleged abuse of one of their own tells me there’s more to the story. Kind of a “deafening silence” type of thing. If there had actually been substance to a charge of false arrest, you can bet NBC, CBS, ABC and maybe even FOX would be screaming bloody murder about it. As for me I’ll try to follow the story and see what I can find out.”

Here’s what I found out: Amy is credentialed for the floor of the eXcel Center to cover the convention, which is where she was when she received a phone call that two of her journalists had been arrested. She immediately proceeded to attempt to find out what had happened, and why they were arrested and that’s what led up to the actions in the video above.

Ok readers, time for you to ring in. Should journalists be subject to the same restraints as the public to heed boundaries set by police, ostensibly for our own safety, or do you think our press credentials should afford us the opportunity to get to any scene at our own risk?

I’m very interested in your comments.

Been On Both Sides,

The BlacKnight