4 ms·

What's their definition of journalist here? Journalists, at these protests, that were arrested? In other words, how many twitter followers do I need before I c

What's their definition of journalist here? Journalists, at these protests, that were arrested? In other words, how many twitter followers do I need before I can identify as a journalist?!

chrisseaton 6y ago
I wonder if there's any countries that specifically recognise people as journalists? Like how police officers have a warrant and specific powers and accountability, could legitimate journalists be recognised, empowered and held accountable like that? Then it could also be an offence to impersonate them. Otherwise yeah a journalist is just some random person claiming to be a journalist and I'm not sure what could be done about that?
- indigochill 6y ago
  Among the professional journalists I've known (quite a few since I went to journalism school and worked in a newsroom for four years), licensing has been universally seen as a Bad Idea. The reason being that this gives the licensing authority power to decide who deserves to be recognized as a credible journalist, which is one very small step away from power over deciding right/wrong-think, which is antithetical to the point of journalism. Perhaps a compromise is to identify a journalist by the news network they're associated with.
- a3camero 6y ago
  The Supreme Court of Canada in 2009 specifically recognized a defence related to defamation as being one that's broader than "journalists" in the sense of employed people who work for the news media, and here's their explanation: "In arguments before us, the defence was referred to as the responsible journalism test. This has the value of capturing the essence of the defence in succinct style. However, the traditional media are rapidly being complemented by new ways of communicating on matters of public interest, many of them online, which do not involve journalists. These new disseminators of news and information should, absent good reasons for exclusion, be subject to the same laws as established media outlets. I agree with Lord Hoffmann that the new defence is “available to anyone who publishes material of public interest in any medium”" Decision: https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/7837/index.do https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/7837/index... This explanation is an answer to the question of who's a "legitimate journalist", which is that it should be about what people are doing not who they work for. That's an idea captured in the above case, which reviews some of the laws of other countries on this subject too. It was in the context of defamation, but it's closely linked to your comments about accountability (since the everyday threat is lawsuits, not assault/arrest).
- kube-system 6y ago
  > I wonder if there's any countries that specifically recognise people as journalists? There are, and it usually is a bad thing. Making it "official" is an easy way to gatekeep speech rights.
Miner49er 6y ago
Let's not pretend that it just happened to smaller-audience journalists. There's videos of CNN reporters being arrested while on air.
- NDizzle 6y ago
  If I was arrested while livestreaming to Facebook I would be on their list of arrested journalists. Technically this means that a journalist was arrested in this situation, by their definition above: https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/04/us/chicago-facebook-live-beating/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/04/us/chicago-facebook-live-beat...
  - Miner49er 6y ago
    So? It's still an attack on the 1st amendment. During the protests I was watching an aggregation of different livestreams on Twitch, many of them were streams on Facebook. Some of the journalists doing reporting on there likely only had a handful of viewers when they started getting streamed by the aggregator and then they had thousands of viewers. These types of journalists caught many of the instances of police brutality that happened during the protests and got video of things like the burning down of the 3rd Precinct in Minneapolis.
    - NDizzle 6y ago
      What I'm hearing is that if I live stream myself performing a crime, and I'm arrested, I'm now a valid statistic for a journalist being arrested. Is that accurate? I strongly disagree with you, if so.
      - Miner49er 6y ago
        This is such a strawman. I doubt you can find evidence of any of the arrested journalists actually getting convicted of a crime from their arrest, let alone a large percentage.
        6y ago
NDizzle 6y ago
From their FAQ: Why doesn't the site include data from before 2017? We do not feel that data collected retroactively would meet our rigorous research standards. We believe that data collected before we established a tracking system, methodology, and outreach is likely to be less comprehensive and therefore likely to underestimate the number of incidents before 2017. So it's a record number of journalists arrested since... 2017?! And finally, the definition of journalist: Who does the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker count as a journalist? The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker adopts a functional definition of who is a journalist. It doesn’t matter whether the individual has a press pass or went to journalism school, whether they work for The New York Times or work for themselves. What matters is whether the person was performing an act of journalism. The Tracker will count journalists whose rights to gather and disseminate information were violated in the course of their work or as a result of their work. In the case of border stops, the resistance of U.S. authorities to provide information makes it extremely difficult to identify whether a journalist has been stopped because of their work. So although it is possible that some journalists may be stopped for other reasons, we will report cases of all journalists who are stopped at the border and questioned for a certain amount of time. A journalist who attends a protest in order to protest publicly, rather than to document the protest, and is arrested or attacked in that capacity will not be counted on the site. While we recognize the importance and the rights of the private citizen who snaps a photo or video of an arrest, this site will only cover individuals who self-identify as journalists and have some track record of journalistic work. In summary: this is a meaningless article.
cavanasm 6y ago
Don't know about their definition for this article, but the US Constitution doesn't define credentials required to exercise freedom of the press. Everyone in America gets that right. Literally anyone can be a journalist by acting as one, even if they don't have an audience.
adamsea 6y ago
Does it actually matter? If you believe it does, why?

What's their definition of journalist here? Journalists, at these protests, that were arrested? In other words, how many twitter followers do I need before I can identify as a journalist?!

chrisseaton 6y ago

I wonder if there's any countries that specifically recognise people as journalists? Like how police officers have a warrant and specific powers and accountability, could legitimate journalists be recognised, empowered and held accountable like that? Then it could also be an offence to impersonate them. Otherwise yeah a journalist is just some random person claiming to be a journalist and I'm not sure what could be done about that?

indigochill 6y ago
Among the professional journalists I've known (quite a few since I went to journalism school and worked in a newsroom for four years), licensing has been universally seen as a Bad Idea. The reason being that this gives the licensing authority power to decide who deserves to be recognized as a credible journalist, which is one very small step away from power over deciding right/wrong-think, which is antithetical to the point of journalism. Perhaps a compromise is to identify a journalist by the news network they're associated with.
a3camero 6y ago
The Supreme Court of Canada in 2009 specifically recognized a defence related to defamation as being one that's broader than "journalists" in the sense of employed people who work for the news media, and here's their explanation: "In arguments before us, the defence was referred to as the responsible journalism test. This has the value of capturing the essence of the defence in succinct style. However, the traditional media are rapidly being complemented by new ways of communicating on matters of public interest, many of them online, which do not involve journalists. These new disseminators of news and information should, absent good reasons for exclusion, be subject to the same laws as established media outlets. I agree with Lord Hoffmann that the new defence is “available to anyone who publishes material of public interest in any medium”" Decision: https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/7837/index.do https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/7837/index... This explanation is an answer to the question of who's a "legitimate journalist", which is that it should be about what people are doing not who they work for. That's an idea captured in the above case, which reviews some of the laws of other countries on this subject too. It was in the context of defamation, but it's closely linked to your comments about accountability (since the everyday threat is lawsuits, not assault/arrest).
kube-system 6y ago
> I wonder if there's any countries that specifically recognise people as journalists? There are, and it usually is a bad thing. Making it "official" is an easy way to gatekeep speech rights.

Miner49er 6y ago

Let's not pretend that it just happened to smaller-audience journalists. There's videos of CNN reporters being arrested while on air.

NDizzle 6y ago
If I was arrested while livestreaming to Facebook I would be on their list of arrested journalists. Technically this means that a journalist was arrested in this situation, by their definition above: https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/04/us/chicago-facebook-live-beating/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/04/us/chicago-facebook-live-beat...
- Miner49er 6y ago
  So? It's still an attack on the 1st amendment. During the protests I was watching an aggregation of different livestreams on Twitch, many of them were streams on Facebook. Some of the journalists doing reporting on there likely only had a handful of viewers when they started getting streamed by the aggregator and then they had thousands of viewers. These types of journalists caught many of the instances of police brutality that happened during the protests and got video of things like the burning down of the 3rd Precinct in Minneapolis.
  - NDizzle 6y ago
    What I'm hearing is that if I live stream myself performing a crime, and I'm arrested, I'm now a valid statistic for a journalist being arrested. Is that accurate? I strongly disagree with you, if so.
    - Miner49er 6y ago
      This is such a strawman. I doubt you can find evidence of any of the arrested journalists actually getting convicted of a crime from their arrest, let alone a large percentage.
      - 6y ago

NDizzle 6y ago

From their FAQ: Why doesn't the site include data from before 2017? We do not feel that data collected retroactively would meet our rigorous research standards. We believe that data collected before we established a tracking system, methodology, and outreach is likely to be less comprehensive and therefore likely to underestimate the number of incidents before 2017. So it's a record number of journalists arrested since... 2017?! And finally, the definition of journalist: Who does the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker count as a journalist? The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker adopts a functional definition of who is a journalist. It doesn’t matter whether the individual has a press pass or went to journalism school, whether they work for The New York Times or work for themselves. What matters is whether the person was performing an act of journalism. The Tracker will count journalists whose rights to gather and disseminate information were violated in the course of their work or as a result of their work. In the case of border stops, the resistance of U.S. authorities to provide information makes it extremely difficult to identify whether a journalist has been stopped because of their work. So although it is possible that some journalists may be stopped for other reasons, we will report cases of all journalists who are stopped at the border and questioned for a certain amount of time. A journalist who attends a protest in order to protest publicly, rather than to document the protest, and is arrested or attacked in that capacity will not be counted on the site. While we recognize the importance and the rights of the private citizen who snaps a photo or video of an arrest, this site will only cover individuals who self-identify as journalists and have some track record of journalistic work. In summary: this is a meaningless article.

cavanasm 6y ago

Don't know about their definition for this article, but the US Constitution doesn't define credentials required to exercise freedom of the press. Everyone in America gets that right. Literally anyone can be a journalist by acting as one, even if they don't have an audience.

adamsea 6y ago

Does it actually matter? If you believe it does, why?