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"Courts have long ruled that the First Amendment protects the right of citizens to take photographs in public places. Even after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, law enforcement agencies have reiterated that right in official policies. But in practice, those rules don't always filter down to police officers and security guards who continue to restrict photographers, often citing authority they don't have. Almost nine years after the terrorist attacks, which ratcheted up security at government properties and transportation hubs, anyone photographing federal buildings, bridges, trains or airports runs the risk of being seen as a potential terrorist. (Can an entire downtown be declared a no-photo zone?) Reliable statistics on detentions and arrests of photographers are hard to come by, but photographers, their advocates and even police agree that confrontations still occur frequently. Photographers had run-ins with police before the 2001 attacks, but constitutional lawyers say the combination of heightened security concerns and the spread of digital cameras has made such incidents more common. "

"The Kaieteur News, one of Guyana's daily newspapers, is notorious for publishing explicit front-page photographs of crime scenes and murder victims, an editorial policy that has roused controversy in the past. But the gruesome photo and accompanying report that led the paper's edition of Saturday 31 October, 2009, triggered widespread outrage not at the Kaieteur News editors but at the Guyana Police Force:"

Press Freedom and Safety ©FIP A press freedom violation can be an assassin's bullet, aimed to kill an investigative journalist, and to intimidate and silence his colleagues. It can be the knock on the door from the police, bringing in a reporter to question her on her sources, or put her in jail with or without a proper trial. It can be a restrictive media law, which puts the power over editorial content into the hands of censors and press courts.

Defending the Barricade On Feb. 1, 2006, Associated Press photographer Oded Balilty was in the West Bank settlement of Amona when a violent confrontation broke out between Jewish settlers and Israeli security forces. The troops were attempting to enforce a government order to tear down nine houses built on private Palestinian land after Israel's Supreme Court rejected a final appeal by the settlers. Balilty, camera ready, stood about 3 meters from the end of the barricade. Crowds lined up on a wall overlooking the holed-up settlers, while Israeli troops in riot gear advanced. "Nili, a young settler ... was standing 15 meters away, biting her fingernails, when she saw them coming and ran toward the barricade," Balilty said. Said Nili: "I felt a stranger pushing me to defend the barricade. It was God who gave me the courage." Moments after Balilty took the photograph that won him the Pulitzer Prize, Nili was beaten by club-wielding police.

Nguyen Ngoc Loan, South Vietnam's national police chief, executed a prisoner who was said to be a Viet Cong captain. AP photographer Eddie Adams won a Pulitzer Prize for a picture that, as much as any, turned public opinion against the war.

"Following up on our previous coverage, Marco Vernaschi let us know that the Pulitzer Center has published another post about the subject, "Uganda: Response to Critics." The post includes both a response by Vernaschi and a note from the Pulitzer Center Executive Director Jon Sawyer. The response specifically addresses questions raised by A Developing Story and Vigilante Journalist and includes a link to an interview with a Ugandan lawyer about the inadequate police response to the murder of Margaret Babirye Nankya, as well as a video of Vernaschi's interview with the girl's mother. Of specific note, also, is Vernaschi's statement about removing another photo from the project, this one of a child's coffin. Three bodies were exhumed in a separate case and this coffin was one of the exhumed bodies."

Afghanistan: Pictures Not Taken 'When the press started to feel empowered to show and tell the truth, it was only a matter of time before the military and government powers would retaliate.' By Travis Beard Journalist Ash Sweeting rides in a pickup with the Afghanistan National Police. Photo by ©Travis Beard/Argusphotography. Nothing has more power to communicate the destruction and despair of our time-especially from the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan-than photography. But in the sanitized and censored environments now of government and military control, taking the picture can be as difficult as getting it published. In coverage of these wars, freelance photojournalists are indispensible. One after another, news organizations have abandoned the task of informing the public. For editors back home, photojournalists-and the images they transmit-are problematic. But it's not the photographers who pose the problem; it's the truth their images tell. During the Vietnam War, there was the searing image of nine-year-old Kim Phouc running down the road with her flesh melting and fusing into her body after a napalm strike and her brother running in front of her with an expression that recalled Edvard Munch's "The Scream." This photograph spoke to people in ways that words had failed to do. These children were ones the Americans were supposed to be saving, not bombing. Images such as this one did much to turn the tide of that war, but if they did, it was because they conveyed important truths.

This article was looks at the role of new media in Sri Lanka and mentions other places. It briefly looks at the politics and history of the conflict in SL and the problems (assassinations, kidnapping, threats and deportation by the government and police)  of conventional reporting from SL. Can Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) and new media help promote human rights and good governance?\n\nNew media and ICTs can be used by illiberal regimes as well as by civilians, but overall it can be used to strengthen democracy, record violence and holds those responsible up for public scrutiny. Mobile phones are redefining our idea of what a journalist is. online reports and bogs are unstoppable because they are decentralized. there are all ways more bloggers if a few are arrested and there are ways around the system even if some sites are blocked.\n\nSri Lanka has many mobile phones among low income groups. It also has low internet costs. But there need to be understanding of the potential of this media. people need to be motivated to participate in governance and policy beyond just at election time.\n\nInternet is 2 way communication making people feel more connected. everyone has a equal voice. Blogs can be used to show conflict and phones with cameras can add images. New media and citizen journalism is different to e-goverment initiative (where gov will open up info for public and present it online)\n\nNew Media and Citizen journo can play important role in info, relief and conflict management and in providing news pictures from disasters and conflicts. SL citizens found a ways to express concerns when mainstream media was cut off. Currently most material comes from english speakers in urban areas, but has the potential to give voice to all citizens. It is also very useful for collecting ststs such as deaths etc.\n\nRealtime video over highspeed internet offers more possibility of having many TV camera man rather than just 1 film crew.\n\nGroundviews.org

interesting piece on how social networks helped build an audience for multimedia "It used to be so simple: Whether I needed to make my way through a police roadblock or explain to curious neighbors why I was taking pictures on their block, barking just two words usually did the trick: "Daily News!" In one breath, the transaction was complete. I had told them something about the authority behind my presence, and at the same time let them know exactly where they'd find my photos-in the next day's paper. I spent the better part of 17 years with the Philadelphia Daily News as a staff photographer and, eventually, the newsroom's first video journalist. Then, 10 months after taking a buyout, I found myself unable to respond to a local deli clerk's simple question: "What do you do for a living?""

Shooting Pictures in Public Places Is Legal Popular Mechanics, of all publications, offers a rational guide to when and where it's legal to take photographs and video. It's a timely topic, in light of BP's attempts to get local law enforcement agencies to scare away photojournalists, and video shooters who have had their equipment confiscated by cops who didn't want cameras pointing at them. (See our recent blog post on this topic: "Journalists vs. Law Enforcement.") University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds' (pictured) conclusion serves as the title of his essay: "Taking Photos in Public Places Is Not a Crime."

The Photographer's Right A Downloadable Flyer Explaining Your Rights When Stopped or Confronted for Photography The Photographer's Right is a downloadable guide that is loosely based on the Bust Card and the Know Your Rights pamphlet that used to be available on the ACLU website. It may be downloaded and printed out using Adobe Acrobat Reader. You may make copies and carry them your wallet, pocket, or camera bag to give you quick access to your rights and obligations concerning confrontations over photography. You may distribute the guide to others, provided that such distribution is not done for commercial gain and credit is given to the author.

PHOTOGRAPHY IN PUBLIC AREAS » FREE DOWNLOAD - The UK Photographers Rights Guide. Permalink 19/11/04 22:33 , Categories: Photographers Rights I'm pleased to announce the launch of the UK Photographers Rights PDF. This is intended to provide a short UK guide to the main legal restrictions on the right to take photographs and the right to publish photographs that have been taken. The guide was written by Linda Macpherson LL.B, Dip.L.P., LL.M, who is a lecturer in law at Heriot Watt University, with particular experience in Information Technology Law, Intellectual Property Law and Media Law.

This is an article of particular interest to the Citizen Photojournalism project. Writer Alissa Quart writes for the Columbia Journalism review amongst others, and in this article, she considers the impact of citizen photojournalism on agencies and professional photojournalism in general.

I must say that during last Sunday's riots in the Old CIty of Jerusalem the citizen journalists outnumbered those who were rioting . At least 6 photographers complained about their difficulties of capturing an image without someone sticking a cell phone or other small camera into the frame . A Palestinian man poked his head of the entrance of his home and asked me to assist a Norwegian man who ran into his home to seek safety but was too afraid to leave the area and was trapped . I helped the man make his way down the alley that separated the masked Palestinian youths who were throwing stones towards the Israeli border police at the other end and told him to stick to my side where he would be more protected by the stone building along the way . This has happened a number of times during my coverage of the Palestinian Israeli conflict and in some ways hinders a photojournalist because they leave the scene to assist someone else , can endanger them further my walking in between lines however even the seasoned professionals have opted out of situations that risked their own safety .

"On the Internet, everybody is a millenarian. Internet journalism, according to those who produce manifestos on its behalf, represents a world-historical development-not so much because of the expressive power of the new medium as because of its accessibility to producers and consumers. That permits it to break the long-standing choke hold on public information and discussion that the traditional media-usually known, when this argument is made, as "gatekeepers" or "the priesthood"-have supposedly been able to maintain up to now. "Millions of Americans who were once in awe of the punditocracy now realize that anyone can do this stuff-and that many unknowns can do it better than the lords of the profession," Glenn Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor who operates one of the leading blogs, Instapundit, writes, typically, in his new book, "An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government and Other Goliaths." The rhetoric about Internet journalism produced by Reynolds and many others is plausible only because it conflates several distinct categories of material that are widely available online and didn't use to be. One is pure opinion, especially political opinion, which the Internet has made infinitely easy to purvey. Another is information originally published in other media-everything from Chilean newspaper stories and entries in German encyclopedias to papers presented at Micronesian conferences on accounting methods-which one can find instantly on search and aggregation sites. Lately, grand journalistic claims have been made on behalf of material produced specifically for Web sites by people who don't have jobs with news organizations. According to a study published last month by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, there are twelve million bloggers in the United States, and thirty-four per cent of them consider blogging to be a form of journalism. That would add