Philip L. Graham, the late publisher of the Washington Post, famously said that news is the first rough draft of history.
If that is the case, then who is writing the history of the streets?
Street reporters — people from the ground up, through print, the Internet and video, are recording the news, and tomorrow’s history. Their work extends far beyond the editorial agenda of The Oregonian and other conventional news networks, and offers a gritty look at what’s really happening to people who stand up -- or are shut out.
This independent press won a major battle earlier this month when Eugene videographer Tim Lewis thwarted prosecutors’ attempts to force him to turn over his video to a grand jury. His video recorded the May 30 demonstration in Eugene during which police used a Taser on a participant. Backed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, Lewis derailed efforts to subpoena his unedited tape, invoking Oregon’s Media Shield Law that protects journalists from handing over their sources and information collected while reporting. Lewis wasn’t employed by conventional media. He was making his own.
"It’s critically important for the public to know the shield law protects their right to know," said ACLU Executive Director for Oregon Dave Fidanque, as quoted in the Eugene Register Guard. “The principle at issue is the public’s right to know” information disseminated by an unfettered news media.
In Portland, videographers have worked tirelessly to document the actions of the streets, from protest to police, and on several occasions have had their cameras confiscated by police officers and detained by the bureau, only to have them returned hours or days later, with the work interrupted for the incident at hand. But the journalism gets out, through Indymedia, YouTube and countless blogs. It is the same for all independent press, video, radio and print, who are writing the less sanitized version of our history.
At the federal level, the Senate is considering a bill to provide, in essence, a federal shield law to journalists. Despite heavy opposition from the Bush administration, the vast majority, 42 at last count, of state attorneys general have signed on in support of the bill, including Oregon’s Hardy Myers. But this bill comes with an immense caveat that these journalists “regularly” engage in such activity and that it is a “substantial” portion of their livelihood or imparts a “substantial financial gain.”
Hold on. That’s corporate journalism, not public journalism. It’s certainly not street journalism, the foundation of our right to free speech. It provides no protection for independent citizen reporters, our writers included, or for videographers and journalists who have documented, with eyewitness clarity, the ebb and flow between dissent and authority. Journalism protected for only corporate interests leaves modern journalism of the masses, of the people, bare to intimidation, coercion and censorship.
Congress needs to acknowledge today’s free world of journalism if it wants to truly protect the First Amendment: to recognize the times, not just the Times. Otherwise, while journalism may craft the first rough draft of history, the editors in government will always be able to run amok with the truth.
