How police control the news agenda
Posted on: Wed, 08/27/2008 - 14:15
How police control the news agenda
This is a fairly old video from Undercurrents.org. It dates from before the 2000 Terrorism Act and s44 stop and search, or for that matter the ACPO media guidelines agreed with the NUJ, or the escalation of harassment of photographers to include amateurs.
It may come as a shock to those who believe the press enjoy special privileges, or that press cards are a VIP ticket for access.
Either I'm not actually living in the real world or there is something seriously amiss with all of this... This video shocked me.
I'm only an amateur photographer but this presents a dark image of police intimidation, cover-up and deliberate marginalisation of anyone wishing to capture events that might be used as evidence (of any kind!) at a later date.
This is NOT the kind of country or society I wish to live in!!!
Freedom is something that is taken for Granted. At least - until it slips away from the people who do not guard it well...
At the moment we are in serious danger of finding the proverbial stable door swinging long after our freedoms have bolted!
Please stand up against this kind of police interference!
Davids final comment at the end of this video summs up the problem.
most of the folks living in the Uk do not live in the real world.
don't think i'm right? Ask you non journalist friends if they think the police are heavy handed, ask them if there are laws prohibiting photography, ask them if there is a privacy right in the UK.
go and ask and then go and sit in a darkened room until you feel the blood return to your fingers.
Paul in northants
These are the same police forces that were given hundreds of regular army personnel to "police" the picket lines during the miners' strikes in the 1980s. The same government that failed to admit that the prime purpose of nuclear power stations is to create weapons grade plutonium (the power output is a welcome side effect). The same government that could scrap Trident et al and put the £25 billion or so into desperately needed social projects. Journalists and photographers are the very lifeblood of society. As Clint Eastwood says in "A Fistful of Dollars"..."in these parts a man's life could depend on the merest scrap of information". Censor "The Media" and exactly that might well happen; in fact, it already has!
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