Press Freedom: Nicaragua and the U.S.

Amy Goodman speaks truth to power. Maybe that is why some in the media say she is a domestic terrorist. She doesn't have a violent bone in her body.

Who in the world is Democracy Now and the Real News network? The Jerry Garcia look a like reporter had only one question- Is the US now a Fascist state? Too funny

As reported on Nightline

During the Dems. convention a reporter for “money on your side” from NightLine News was arrested for filming from the street a private party were the Dems did not want the world to know they were hyping it up and making deals. He was pushed into oncoming traffic by a cop and his cameraman was pushed around and arrested by a cop with a 8 inch stogy (cigar) hanging from his mouth. Then this week a Rep.Congressman was shown head butting a camera in the street of a reporter asking why he was going to a “fundraiser” when the party asked everyone to have a low-key approach because of the hurricane. It goes both ways, but repression is repression.

Yes I am a Dem. And even accused of being a Sandinista – that is just an ignorant statement because I am not a Nicaraguan, but thanks for the complement.

It is not obvious that this Goodman “case” is a commentary on press freedoms in the U.S. And, the story, reported fairly accurately, is in many U.S. newspapers, so it is not exactly an example of the press or government not letting, or preventing, people from learning of it. There were so many press passes in the Twin Cities when this happened, no one can even accurately estimate them. If journalists were routinely prevented from doing their jobs by government officials, that is a commentary on press freedoms, or the lack thereof. However, of the countless journalists there, only three were apparently 3 detained/arrested - and that was at the time of a mass disorder in which riot police were pursuing protesters who were damaging property, including police cars (not usually mentioned in most accounts), and the journalists were caught in the middle. Goodman was arrested later due to specific things she did when specifically instructed not to do them. If you are told that doing “x” will get you arrested, and you proceed to instantly do “x” 1 meter from riot police, on a spot they told you that you cannot be, then it should not come as a surprise that you end up arrested; doing such a thing could easily be said to be a weird case of civil disobedience (acknowledged or not) or an act of stupidity, and neither one is best-suited as a test-case for press freedoms in the U.S.

The arrests were probably the best thing that could have happened to Goodman.  Without them, they don’t even have a RNC story, really (now she has a story for the next few years – longer if she really milks it).  Nothing of interest happened at (inside) the RNC.  That is why her key staff were elsewhere.  Though it (the You-Tube video of her actual arrest, not of the subsequent interview posted here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ ) is apparently now the most watched online video of the day (week, month whatever), not many people seem to ask the most obvious question of all regarding the whole thing: why didn’t the police arrest the videographer next to Goodman, the one shooting Goodman’s arrest? 

The answer is that the person with the video camera is, as instructed and as is obvious, staying behind the police barrier (after Goodman is taken away, the officers continue to tell this cameraperson to stay where he/she is – and they never attempt to arrest him/her, precisely because this person does not violate the perimeter/order).  The video starts abruptly. One can only assume that what -if anything- happened before she Goodman in arms reach of the police and crossed the patrol line they told her at least three times not to cross, does not further her case or it would be included in the video clip. Goodman, though she apparently believes otherwise, as a journalist has no special legal right of access to people who have already been detained and/or arrested. She has no civil nor constitutional right to disobey officers and cross a riot-police barrier.  Even if she was their attorney she has no such claim; being merely their “boss” with a press pass that is no harder to fake than a ski pass, isn‘t of any added benefit.  A press pass does not entitle one to go anywhere one feels like it. Journalists who have been detained/arrested (not unheard of in the chaos of a mass demonstration) and released (often in a few minutes or an hour or so, but given that 300 people were taken in the Twin Cities, Goodman’s hours hardly seems all that extraordinary) are not automatically entitled to some grand public stage or compensation. When the scene is political protest and/or violence, the job comes with certain risks, one of which is that police in riot gear cannot always, instantly, separate criminals from those claiming to document them - a situation made more complicated by the fact that many protesters specifically attempt to provoke police while at the same time filming them.

That Goodman thinks she can cross the police barrier (a barrier obviously intended to separate police from citizens - citizens not being arrested) when instructed not to, then announce that she is with people they have already detained, believing that this will get her something, says more about Goodman's lack of common sense and knowledge of the law then it does about press freedoms. It is debatable if everything that happened after her two associates found themselves trapped between police and the people they were pursuing was something more than an orchestrated publicity act on her part. The video starts abruptly. She is told several times not to cross the line she crosses anyway, then told to get back on the sidewalk which she also refuses to do. She is then detained and she then claims she wants to speak to their commander. Well, guess what, disobeying a direct order and crossing the line announced as the point of “arrest”, then claiming you are with the people they already arrested and demanding to speak to their commander - isn’t much of a plan, and any high school student should be able to figure that out. The idea, all over the web, that Goodman was unlawfully arrested, is ludicrous. She was arrested just as she should have been (wrong “crime” though, but still a misdemeanor), given her actions at the perimeter. Her associates never should have been arrested as police should have been able to determine their legitimacy (though doing so would have taken some time), before ever leaving for booking, but that is a separate set of circumstances from Goodman’s actions. Her life, seconds prior to arrest, was fairly straightforward: "...if you cross this line you will be under arrest so don't do it...". The real question is why Goodman crossed that line: did she really believe it would lead to the release of her associates, or to something resulting in far more publicity for her?

me feel safer.

Knowing that pesky Bill of Rights doesn't get in the way vital police work.

-Doug © , not US bashing, just sad, very sad

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate