Now I'm not saying that I condone this or that it's not in poor taste etc. I think there is a reason that professional journalists are just that and the method by which a story is published and the process of accountability is something we really should not lose to the emerging world of 'citizen journalism' (which let's face it isn't really journalism).
But I am truly shocked that someone was actually sent to prison for taking and posting pictures of the Grenfell fire victims. 100 years of photojournalism that has shown things equally as bad (the Vietcong prisoner being executed, the girl fleeing the burning village after a napalm attack, victims of famine and the holocaust); at what point did we suddenly decide to lock the photographer up rather than give them a Pulitzer Prize?
[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41314418# ]Man sent to jail for photographing Grenfell fire victims[/url]
The only info I have is from your link but he did interfere by lifting the cover over the body and he did post them on Facebook which is hardly the Washington post.
[i]"Then came the move that pushed Mwaikambo's actions into the criminal. He uploaded seven of the pictures, plus one short video, to his Facebook page."[/i]
There you go. Not the action of a journalist - the action of a voyeur who wants to get "likes" off his "friends".
Jail.
Jail does seem a little harsh, but opening a body-bag and snapping shots of the occupant straight to FB isn't 'citizen journalism'; it's opportunistic voyeurism.
How would you like to know a relative had died, via a 3rd person based on a Facebook status update (including pics) or via the authorities?
As above, it was Facebook not the Washington Post.
Jail time seems totally inappropriate to me. Large parts of our nation habitually document large parts of their life experiences on social media - search online and you'll find many deeply upsetting images and videos of fatal accidents, quite of few of which make their way onto 'official' news outlets.
He strikes me as someone naive, perhaps a little traumatised himself by seeing the body, whose reflexive action when confronted with something so extraordinary was, like many others, to get out their iPhone and start filming/posting it. Doesn't seem to be anything calculating about the offence, at least not enough to merit spending time in HMP Wandsworth .
Well the first trigger would be when he plead guilty. Presumably either he didn't lead any mitigation (like, "he was in shock at the events and traumatised by what he had seen, and on coming across the body offended at it being dumped there and felt that this mistreatment needed to be documented") or the judge didn't accept it.at what point did we suddenly decide to lock the photographer up rather than give them a Pulitzer Prize?
Personally I find the progression down the following steps pretty difficult to rationalise, and had it been a journalist for the Sun "we" would have been calling for everyone at the Sun to be jailed, by step 2.
[list][*]you see a body seemingly dumped on the street, and feel it is an outrage, you take a picture to document the way bodies are being treated. [i]I am OK with this.[/i]
[*]you uncover the body. [i]I think that was a key part of the disgust it created [/i]
[*]you take pictures of the face (presumably just in case your face book friends say it is not a body)
[*]you post the most gory of those pictures on facebook [i]as a general rule in life more people need a facebook sense filter[/i]
[*]you approach a photographer with a view to having them shared more widely (for money?).[/list]
Still there is a right of appeal against sentence which he doesn't seem to have used (or was unsuccessful).
Are you all ignoring him using his iPad to take pictures - surely he deserves jail time just for that?
Actually I do think the sentence seems pretty harsh in the context of sentences given for other things. Whilst he clearly was guilty and what he did was distasteful, I can't help feeling this wasn't what the particular law was intended for. ISTM a suspended or community sentence would have been appropriate (admittedly I've not checked the sentencing guidelines and CBA in this case, but that feels a lot more right to me than prison).
The charges included simply photographing the body bags as well as uncovering the them to photograph the face. So on one level, even photographing and then publishing something as relatively benign as a body bag has been deemed illegal. This is the part that is really scary. The act of publishing is what has caused him to be prosecuted and jailed and this is nothing short of censorship.
I think what he did is deeply questionable and should be socially chastised to discourage it from happening. I just don't think photographing and then publishing the truth should be illegal.
100 years ago we used to lock people up who committed acts of what society then called gross indecency. If we are now also locking different people up who cause moral outrage because they do something that hurts our sensibilities and feelings, how is that any different; how are we not regressing to a Victorian state of moral totalitarianism?
It's very scary. It's censorship and it's hypocrisy. Freedom of speech comes at a price.
[i]...cause moral outrage because they do something that hurts our sensibilities and feelings[/i]
Trouble is, there's the "the 2003 Communications Act ... posting offensive images to a social media network." which he pled guilty to.
And "by uploading those photos shows absolutely no respect to this poor victim" was part of the judges summing up.
Just like a white supremecist wouldn't agree that he's breaking any laws, you may not agree with the law, but there it is.
Sure but it's the law that I think is wrong and that's precisely what my post is about.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not condoning what he did. I don't think he did the right thing and I find it saddening that these things, like hate speech of either side, exist. I just think making something illegal because it might cause moral outrage and upset people is a regressive step.
If you do something that while distasteful to others nevertheless causes no actual harm, then that shouldn't be illegal.
You might have had half-a-leg to stand on if he had posted the picture as a scathing political commentary on the past seven years of Tory misrule.
But as it is the comparison with photos from Vietnam is fatuous at best, if not ghoulish.
Have you even considered how the poor victim's family must have felt before deciding to get all Woodward and Bernstein about it?
geetee1972 - MemberThe charges included simply photographing the body bags as well as uncovering the them to photograph the face. So on one level, even photographing and then publishing something as relatively benign as a body bag has been deemed illegal. This is the part that is really scary.
I sincerely doubt he would have received a custodial sentence had he not interfered with the deceased, and that action is for me what pushes his behaviour into the unacceptable.
Also, he tried to sell the photos to a journalist, so he clearly thought they were ok and worth other people viewing. All that balls about him not knowing what he was doing is just, well balls. Should've kept them for his own **** bank and then he wouldn't have got done.
geetee1972 - MemberNow I'm not saying that I condone this or that it's not in poor taste etc. I think there is a reason that professional journalists are just that and the method by which a story is published and the process of accountability is something [b]we really should not lose to the emerging world of 'citizen journalism' (which let's face it isn't really journalism)[/b].
60-70% of adults get their news from social media and in the next 10 years we'll see a massive leap forward in that number making tradional news media less and less relevant. I'm not excusing what this guy did, it does seem pretty distasteful but my guess is this will be the new normal.
Our laws and the culture of our media can't adapt quickly enough to changes in technology.
DezB - MemberAlso, he tried to sell the photos to a journalist,
Photojournalists sell photos and videos to news outlets all the time. There has been live video from the scene of the crime at any number of recent disasters or terror attacks. Those people often get paid, you just don't hear about it.
Remember the guy who made the video in Barcelona after the van attack walking up and down the street filming survivors covered in blood as well as bodies and carnage? The rolling 24hr news coverage must have shown that clip for hours on end over and over and over. How much ad revenue did they get during that period?
[i]DezB - Member
Also, he tried to sell the photos to a journalist,
Photojournalists sell photos and videos to news outlets all the time. There has been live video from the scene of the crime at any number of recent disasters or terror attacks. Those people often get paid, you just don't hear about it.[/i]
Selective quoting often changes the meaning of a sentence doesn't it. Makes the follow up pretty pointless.
I was referring to the fact he said that he didn't know what he was doing. Well, he clearly had time to think about that and clearly thought it was ok.
That's a shite bit of law right there.He appeared in court two days later, where he pleaded guilty to two charges of breaching the [b]2003 Communications Act by posting offensive images to a social media network.[/b]
It's the fact they were dead, I think, that makes the difference. I once did a course on stewarding motor bike racing events, and I always remember them saying, if anything serious happens, take lots of pictures but do not take pictures of a dead body.
Or was it of their face? It was a few years ago...
OK. So I've lost a loved one in tragic circumstances. Am I OK with some **** not only taking pictures for his own twisted gratification and sharing with his "friends" on Facebook but then seeking to sell those to the highest bidder? No I'm not.
That BBC article appears to be trying to spin the guys actions as positively as they can. There is a legal commentary on the case here:
Racist sentencing.
Am I OK with some **** not only taking pictures for his own twisted gratification and sharing with his "friends" on Facebook but then seeking to sell those to the highest bidder? No I'm not.
Well I think very few people would be ok with it. But that's not the question being posed.
The question being posed is should it be illegal? The argument for it is that it's morally reprehensible and repugnant to our society to do so.
That's precisely what the Victorians said about homosexuality 100 years ago and I for one am deeply uncomfortable with someone arbitrating the legal position of what moral outrage is or is not legally acceptable.
The law as its stated seems to be an ass and the real casualty here will be freedom of speech.
http://mashable.com/2017/09/14/child-disability-instagram-censorship/#cPrgQsHeekqN
Sentence sits uneasily to me, technically this mother could be in breach of the 2003 act as well.
DezB - MemberI was referring to the fact he said that he didn't know what he was doing. Well, he clearly had time to think about that and clearly thought it was ok.
I'm struggling to muster any outrage about any of this to be honest. Could just be a perfect convergence of circumstances. We all know people who post endless streams of inane content on their social media (and this guy claims to be such a person). Now he's confronted by a cataclysmic event and his inclination is to document it. He clearly went too far but his intentions weren't necessarily malicious.
His realisation that he might be in possession of something valuable doesn't automatically imply a money grabbing motive to his initial actions. He might simply have been in shock and set about documenting what he saw.
There are accounts of war photographers doing very similar things, or at least being unsure whether to shoot or not to shoot and opting to shoot. And in light of every news outlet running 24hr round the clock footage from found sources of recent events and selling advertising in between those images or embedding them on their websites which are plastered with adverts I can't see why anyone should point their moral outrage at him when mainstream institutions are guilty of much more egregious transgressions on a daily basis.
I don't think what he did was right. It's not defensible as journalism, as he wasn't either reporting things as they were (a photo of the bags) or doing something investigative (I'm sure the Police were concerned about identifying them and informing relatives) if he was outraged that body bags were being left in the street, then the rest of the world can be outraged that he thought it was then OK to go and interfere with them. If he'd just photographed them, or even a body laying in the street with the caption 'this is a disgrace' I don't think that would have been a problem
But. That's not what he was convicted of, which IMO is the problem. Surely they could have charged him with interfering with an investigation or something?
i'm neither condoning his actions nor his sentence but , he could not be charged with interfering in an investigation as a) there is no such offence b) pervert the course of justice or obstruct a pc the nearest offences would not be made out on the facts. The or something they came up with was the "malicious communications" charge he received and on legal advice chose to plead guilty to. I'm not confident that offence is a good fit either but given he as facing being remanded to custody for his own protection any way if he pleaded not guilty maybe he saw it as a pragmatic solution , he'd serve 6 weeks tops, where as a remand until trial could be a couple of months anyway.
[i]I'm struggling to muster any outrage about any of this to be honest.[/i]
Er, who is?
[i]His realisation that he might be in possession of something valuable doesn't automatically imply a money grabbing motive to his initial actions
He might simply have been in shock and set about documenting what he saw.[/i]
Jeez, are you purposely being hard work? He claimed his initial actions were from shock. So when he'd had time to sit down, stick his photos on Face book for all his friends to see, then call a photographer to make some money off them.. ah man I can't be arsed. You're right obviously.
^^ And this is why you never see me on long drawn out threads!
Better investigative journalism than the guardian and they're still free to walk the streets 😆
DezB - MemberI'm struggling to muster any outrage about any of this to be honest.Er, who is?
Jeez, are you purposely being hard work?
^^ And this is why you never see me on long drawn out threads!
You're coming across as perfectly calm.
He claimed his initial actions were from shock. So when he'd had time to sit down, stick his photos on Face book for all his friends to see, then call a photographer to make some money off them.
So he acted on impulse and captured the images. Felt compelled to share them as he feels compelled to share things on Facebook and this is the biggest thing to happen in his life.
Later he realises that there is mainstream interest and value in what he has captured. He can either give them to mainstream news outlets for free and they will then run them endlessly between hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of tv adverts and embed them on their websites surrounded by adverts or he can sell them to mainstream news outlets and they will then run them endlessly between hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of tv adverts and embed them on their websites surrounded by adverts.