Pixiq

Even crazier, you can pull up his father’s home on Google. Carlos have you ever wrote about this Google thing in reference to photography?

http://americaspeaksink.com/2009/05/google-earth-good-or-bad/

Frankly, I’m usually behind the photographer/videographer in these cases but I can’t help but feel some sympathy for the grieving man. Did he attack the guy or did he walk over cuss at him and throw the equipment down? He should have controlled himself but I’m not even going to pretend to know what the guy must have been feeling if he and his father where close.

The media have every right to film in public and to report the story. But do the victims and families of victims have no rights to come and go unmolested, in private, out of view? So much commercial media acts like vultures that it’s hard even for regular people to fight the urge to wave a blunt stick to chase them off…

I was watching video from the Haiti rescues and during once indecent a reporter kept pushing through and asking the mother of a rescued woman. “How do you feel?” The old lady turned around, looked confused for a second then shocked and said, “Relief! How do you think I feel? What a stupid question.”

So, my point? Yes, he could have handled his anger and grief better but frankly if he’s charged with something that’s going to leave a bad taste in my mouth about the state of decency. The media doesn’t have the right to be vultures.

Do we really need a 24 hour camera watching the houses of victims and their families? Couldn’t they just show a picture of the house, the son, the victim and give us updates as time goes on? No, of course not, because they have the “right” to be there in the street, aiming the camera.

Well, I can understand “both” sides of the situation. I know it’s hard for me to say (not ever being under those same set of circumstances), for Mr. Roberts to just leave it alone and let it go, but then.. considering the fact the camera was on a tripod and wasn’t being shoved into his face.

It’s hard to second guess what happened. The whole thing might have turned out better if Mr. Roberts had approached the news man and said/asked something like, ie:

“I know you’re doing your job, but under the circumstances can’t you allow us some peace during our bereavement?”.. and then turned around and walked away.

Rail Car Fan

I can feel complete sympathy for the man until he attacked the videographer. His grief gives him absolutely no right to attack the videographer who was doing his job on public property.

I hope the station and the videographer press every charge they can against this man and make him pay damages.

“victims and families of victims have no rights to come and go unmolested,”

You’re implying that someone filming from a street is molesting the people they are taking pictures of. Furthermore, you’re implying (with the part after the comma) that public property somehow becomes private when … what, exactly? when a victim walks in view of it?

Just because something terrible happened to you doesn’t give you the right to cause property damage. If this son of a murder victim got upset and drove around running in to things, would we be going “SHOULDN’T WE GIVE THE GRIEVING PERSON SOME LEEWAY?”

No, we wouldn’t. This has nothing to do with the person that was attacked and everything to do with the attacker. $40,000 is a lot of money to owe because you can’t keep your emotions in check.

Street view (referenced in the article, which is not the same as Google Earth) is a snapshot. Neighborhoods change, people move. You can’t, as a thief, case a joint using google street view, because you’re not just looking at the structure on the outside. You’re looking at the inside, at where cameras are, at how the guard rotation works, at how often cops come by. Until street view is LIVE, that article makes no sense.

He should have saved his assault for the muderer-he could likely get by with that.

He shouldn’t be charged unless he refuses to pay restitution.

I mentioned that he should have controlled himself. I never said he shouldn’t pay restitution. And I never said he had the right to attack someone. Good lord. Genewich, you’re using a straw man argument. In the end this man should pay for the damages and should be cited but not charged.

I personally can not rank this man (despite him being involved with a public figure) in the same filthy bull pen as abusive cops, power mad security guards and over zealous neighborhood-watch busy bodies “protecting” their local malls and flag poles from the camera toting terrorists.

Thinking back on my original post, my intended points have little to do with specific or perceived rights to actions on public or even the right to film. My thoughts are not even about legally protected rights. Please understand that this case and ones like it have me honestly worried. I’m expressing that worry and not arguing that we don’t have XX rights or that they have YY rights.

And what I worry about is this, there are many in the professional media who no longer practice journalism but voyeurism. They can not even differentiate between them.There is rarely a defined journalistic need to live broadcast from a victims house or families house, or even for that matter, to keep broadcasting a suspects house or families house.

That is illusion of journalism. It is the cross that journalism now bears, “we have the right to be here and to do this.” Yes, we do. Of course we do. I’m not saying we don’t. But at some point we have to admit that this is surveillance and not journalism. And that we love it. We breath it all in, consume it and excrete it.

So I’m going to say this, the general public has the duty to confront this unchecked media surveillance in the same way that it has the duty to confront unchecked governmental surveillance. There are reasons it’s called the fourth estate.

So this is what worries me. If journalists and their handlers don’t have the ethical compass and judgmental tools to know, to understand when to back off then the public will demand laws to force them to. And THAT is where it gets dangerous for a free media and for hobbyists. That is a real threat to journalism in the USA and it’s already happening.

The real criminals, the abusive cops, essentially those who have the control or want tighter control will jump on the anti-media bandwagon with guns blazing. And then even more laws will be passed to control how we film, what we can take photos of and how and where we can conduct ourselves as media. The constitution be damned and real journalism, real journalists, will suffer. So will the state of the free media and our access and understanding of what’s really going on.

When photographers/videographers record police behavior, they protect the rights of the public. When the media film relatives of victims, they almost always serve prurient interests. That’s why the news media spend so little time filming cops, and so much filming anguished victims.