E-Media Tidbits

A Dec. 20 Associated Press story by Beth DeFalco covered an assault on a South Brunswick (N.J.) High School student. Apparently, this attack was planned, recorded by cell phone, and then submitted to YouTube, Google Video, and MySpace.

According to the article, South Brunswick police detective Jim Ryan noted that after the video was discovered online, all three sites were notified and cooperated with removing the video.

The student who recorded the incident was charged with "possessing a remotely activated recording device on school grounds." A few paragraphs later, DeFalco wrote: "Ryan said that using a cell phone on school grounds without the permission of school officials is technically a crime. However, he said police only recommend charging someone with the statute when the cell phone is used to commit a crime, such as harassment."

Now, the story itself -- of girls staging and then recording an incident of bullying with the intention to distribute it on the Internet -- is disturbing enough. But DeFalco pointed out another sinister angle:

"Media experts worry that the charges against the girls for distributing images of the fight could be used to stem legitimate citizen journalism. ...The statute] could have implications for media organizations that film something on the street or publish or broadcast images submitted by people with cell phones, says Guy Baehr, assistant director of Rutgers University's Journalism Resources Institute."

I contacted the Electronic Frontier Foundation on this matter and received the following statement from EFF Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl: "This case is distinguishable from citizen journalism on several levels, and I am not particularly worried that charges against these girls under harassment statutes could be used as a precedent against citizen journalists."

It stands to reason that if part of a premeditated crime includes filming the incident and then placing it on video-sharing sites, that would not in any way be considered citizen journalism.

This leaves me curious about why DeFalco used this particular incident to raise the question of First Amendment rights and cell phone use in an act of citizen journalism.

Clearly in this case a crime was committed, and the perpetrators took the photos. This is quite different from the case of Josh Wolf, the video blogger who is currently in jail for refusing to turn over videos of a demonstration in which analleged crime was committed. In Wolf's case, he did not know the alleged perpetrators and had no advance knowledge of criminal activity at the demonstration.

Reporters and editors should be very careful when raising the issue of citizen journalism and the First Amendment. Alleged perpetrators recording criminal activity are not citizen journalists.