BULL'S-EYE ON THE BACK
Journalists can be in danger when viewed as arms of law enforcement
by Deborah Potter

You're a television news photographer covering a hostage standoff. You've heard that a man holding dozens of children inside a day care center wants to talk to the media. But you're surprised when the police suddenly demand that you give them your camera. What do you do?

Radio-Television Luxembourg didn't hesitate this June. The crew gave up not just the camera, but also their jackets and press cards, helping the police set up an ambush. When the hostage taker emerged for what he thought would be a television interview, the police, masquerading as media, shot him in the head.

Luxembourg police defended their actions, saying it minimized the threat to the hostages who were ultimately rescued, unharmed. And the television station said it was "a legal request, so we had no opportunity to refuse it." But journalism groups, like the International Federation of Journalists and Reporters sans Frontieres, denounced the operation. "Disturbing," said IFJ. "A dangerous precedent," said RSF. In Washington, the Radio and Television News Directors Association also strongly condemned the Luxembourg police action, and urged news organizations to "resist cooperating in such plans."

But it seemed that US journalists weren't paying much attention. Only one news producer expressed concern on the widely read TV newsletter "Shoptalk," a daily Internet forum where threads of conversation about seemingly trivial issues frequently run on for days. This time, not one person chimed in. It was as if no one thought it could happen here.

And then it did-not two weeks after the Luxembourg incident-in New Jersey. Police in Newark seized a camera from a New Jersey Network crew covering a hostage incident. "They said the guy wanted to be on TV," photographer John Williams later told the Star-Ledger newspaper. Police told the man he'd get what he wanted, if he gave up his hostage-and eventually, he did. "If it helped get somebody out, then maybe it's a good thing," Williams said.

While it's true that in both situations the hostages were released unharmed, this is hardly a case of no harm, no foul. "It's tough enough to cover a bad situation without having a bull's eye on your back," says Jerome Aumente of the Rutgers School of Communication. And journalists could indeed become targets, if criminals or terrorists come to believe that the media are in cahoots with the cops.

"When I'm confronted with one of these ethical dilemmas," says Steve Sweitzer, news operations manager at WISH-TV in Indianapolis, "I always like to start by turning the tables. I this case, I think we'd all agree that it would not be appropriate under any circumstance for a member of the news media to 'pretend' to be a police officer."

Even the head of the FBI's hostage negotiation unit concedes that "trickery and foolery" are bad business. Gary Noesner is quoted on the Web site Poynter.org as saying that FBI agents would pose as photographers only in exceptional circumstances, when deceit was the last available option to reach a peaceful resolution. And even then, he said, "we'd use our own cameras."

But local police departments may be more willing to co-opt television journalists. Last fall, for example, Denver police borrowed a camera from one local station and a microphone from another, and posed as a television crew to "interview" a man who had held them at bay for several hours, demanding to speak to the media. He'd claimed to have sticks of dynamite taped to his body, but they turned out to be road flares.

What were the "exceptional circumstances" in that case? The only life apparently at risk was that of the man with the fake dynamite. Police had been trying to settle the standoff for all of three hours, which suggests they had not exhausted every other option.

The concern here isn't just that photographers could be at risk if violent people think they might actually be police officers. What's also in jeopardy is the public's trust. "To command that trust, we must have independence and integrity," says photographer Jason Rhodes of KMBC-TV in Kansas City. But Rhodes says his opposition to cooperating with police is not ironclad. "If loaning equipment might save lives, we have to decide if we are willing to compromise our standards to help."

Whatever the decision, it should not be made on the fly by journalists in the field, who may be justifiably intimidated when an official with a badge and a gun demands that they hand over their equipment. David Handschuh, vice president of the National Press Photographers Association, says every station should have a policy in place. Steve Sweitzer agrees. "I would certainly advise our photographers not to loan a camera or even a mic flag/logo to the police without first checking with the news director." That seems only prudent, because whatever you used to think, it really can happen here.

(This article was originally published in the American Journalism Review, September 2000)