Mainstream media: Jailing reporter is no way to bring rioters to justice
The following op-ed represents a mainstream opinion that represents views which misrepresent and offend anarchists. Josh Wolf did not "hang around self-proclaimed anarchists"--he is in fact an anarchist involved with the independent media movement. The "self-proclaimed anarchists" were in fact anarchists involved with a group called Anarchist Action, which had organized the protest in question. There were no "punks", or a subculture, involved in these protests. Anarchists have organized protests around the world against the G8.
A college kid with a video camera and anarchist sympathies makes an unlikely First Amendment icon, but last week Josh Wolf became one.
Wolf, a 24-year-old from San Francisco, became the journalist to serve the longest stretch in prison for contempt of court for refusing to share unpublished materials with a grand jury. Wolf has spent nearly six months in the federal lockup in Dublin, and he isn't likely to breathe free air anytime soon.
A college kid with a video camera and anarchist sympathies makes an unlikely First Amendment icon, but last week Josh Wolf became one.
Wolf, a 24-year-old from San Francisco, became the journalist to serve the longest stretch in prison for contempt of court for refusing to share unpublished materials with a grand jury. Wolf has spent nearly six months in the federal lockup in Dublin, and he isn't likely to breathe free air anytime soon.
His standoff with federal prosecutors stems from a 2005 protest-turned-riot in San Francisco, where "anarchists" demonstrated on the occasion of a G-8 summit of major nations in Scotland. Violence broke out, a police car was nearly set ablaze, and a San Francisco police officer suffered a skull fracture in a melee.
Wolf, a journalism student and freelance videographer at the time, recorded the demonstration and sold footage to the local TV news. In effect, he was doing what reporters from CNN or Redding's Channel 7 do every day. For his trouble, he got a visit from federal investigators, who wanted to see the rest of his tapes of the demonstration. He refused to comply with a grand jury subpoena, and now he sits in jail.
California and almost every other state have shield laws that prevent journalists from being forced to name confidential sources or share notes. This legal privilege -- akin to lawyer-client or doctor-patient confidentiality -- simply assures that reporters can do their job.
Unfortunately, Congress has never enacted a similar federal shield law, and federal prosecutors in recent years have grown much more aggressive in forcing journalists to become investigative arms of the government.
This is deeply counterproductive.
Wolf hung around self-proclaimed anarchist activists, documenting their activities -- which blend political dissent and criminality into an occasionally nasty brew. If his subjects knew the government could seize his tapes, they would never agree to be filmed in the first place. Would keeping the public (and, for that matter, police and prosecutors) in the dark about this subculture serve anyone's interest? No.
It's time for Congress to pass a federal shield law, and it's time to release Josh Wolf. The anarchist punks whose mayhem he caught on film deserve due punishment, but throwing a journalist in jail to make him talk is the wrong way to accomplish that.
http://www.redding.com/news/2007/feb/13/jailing-reporter-is-no-way-to-bring-rioters-to/