Muddy Waters, Murky Outcomes – NPAC Commentary

The muddy river of Canadian journalists’ rights and responsibilities just got a whole lot murkier with the arrest of Toronto Star journalist Alex Consiglio on June 2, 2013.

Consiglio is charged with the horrible crime of actually doing his job, in this case, photographing an unfolding news event at a Toronto GO transit station where police and transit officials were dealing with a transit officer who’d been injured.

To understand how we’ve come to this sorry state in our efforts to do our jobs, it helps to unravel what goes through the brains of the spin-makers who now project the faces of just about every corporate and public institution in North America.

You are not hearing from the transit board chairman or anyone else who actually is charged with making decisions of the kind mentioned here. Instead, you are hearing the voice of a media relations manager, a publicist, a public relations officer – or whatever other title they dream up for the individual who is the human shield between their organization and the media.

Anne Marie Aikins, the media relations manager with Metrolinx, told the Star that news photographers are not allowed to take photos at Union Station without Metrolinx permission.

She said working journalists need to sign a waiver before taking photos and that the increased popularity of social media and smartphone cameras are adding new challenges for GO officers “during potentially dangerous situations.”

In this particular case, the only danger would seem to have been the headlock police put on Consiglio after he took a photo of the injured transit officer being taken away by medical personnel.

Of course, there’s also the much bigger danger to our basic rights and freedoms. A waiver before taking photos? Is she daft? Well, no, she’s just doing her job of “managing”. But the key question that needs answering is this: what exactly is she managing?

If, as her title suggests, it is “media relations”, she has badly overstepped the line. Let’s parse a few words here:

“Media” is that overarching umbrella under which we relegate everyone from Ben Mulroney reporting on the latest expensive shoe styles to those news photographers who put themselves in the line of fire while covering the 2011 Stanley Cup riots in Vancouver.

“Relations” refers to connecting with and ensuring that those journalists hired to do their jobs of reporting the news through both words and images can do so without interference.

Were it not for the professionalism and tenacity of Canadian journalists, the spin-makers would never have allowed the Rob Ford imbroglio to continue for this long, they would have buried the Senate scandals under mountains of committee reports, and cases of police brutality such as the Robert Dziekanski tasering homicide at Vancouver International Airport, in 2007, would not have surfaced without videotaped evidence.

Bert Bruser, in-house counsel for the Star, says Metrolinx requirements for photographers are “stupid” and “silly”, and the transit body’s handling of Consiglio’s case has raised a storm of criticism. 

“All journalists should do exactly as Alex did and that is to do their jobs. From what I’ve seen, he didn’t do anything wrong. He was doing his job as a journalist (in) Union Station which has to be one of the most public places in Canada,” Bruser says.

Journalists have to continue to do their jobs and not be intimidated, and that’s just at minimum, he says.

“It’s stupid to have to ask for permission to take a photograph.” But the question of whether Metrolinx has the right to demand this makes it much more complicated.

“I believe this is covered in the Charter of Rights, but it’s not yet been tested in the courts. One day, I hope it is. Freedom of expression includes the right to report on events as well as to publish,” he says.

For now, says Bruser, “This incident is a dramatic example of how, in this country, photographers are hindered in doing their job. We’re still trying to figure what the hell happened. Alex has been charged with trespassing and has to pay a fine of $50 or something like that. There’s no way he’s going to pay that fine and it will likely go to trial. But this will take some time.”

It may also be time to think up some strategies to help loosen the noose around our necks created by over-enthusiastic media handlers. We don’t need handling. We need help in doing jobs that are more essential than ever to a free and democratic society. Witness what happens in countries where there is little or no press freedom.

There is strength in numbers and it may be time for us to join hands with other groups such as the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression which is as concerned as we, at NPAC, are with the increasing number of hurdles being placed in the way of quality journalism. We should keep hammering home the message that those precious individual rights we tend to take for granted are being eroded, one trespassing fine at a time.

 

– NPAC Board of Directors

 

(Also posted on our Forums)