Don't taze us, we're with the media

[limpyhobbler]

As the line between press and protester blurs, more and more reporters are getting cuffed--and worse--as they cover the counterculture

As the Veterans for Peace led marchers into the mayhem of last month's NATO protest in Chicago, photographers and cameramen from major media outlets rode ahead of the pack on a double-decker bus. A few more enterprising mainstream journalists were brave enough to walk in the crowd — under the protection of uniformed security guards. And when shit finally went down that evening, most television crews retreated to rooftops on the edge of the chaos. Embedded they were not.

Since Occupy began, authorities nationwide have seemed eager to keep press at a distance. While reporters from large news organizations have mostly gone along with that, their less-well-paid nontraditional counterparts — bloggers, freelancers, livestreamers, and Twitterati — have been up close and elbow-deep, risking arrest or worse.

Josh Stearns of the media-reform nonprofit Free Press, which tracks journalist arrests, says the 2008 Republican National Convention set a new tone for the treatment of reporters. "This sort of thing was seen as an aberration," he says. "Now, though, every other week we learn about at least two more arrests. It's no longer an aberration — it's a trend, and it's an ongoing issue."

It's also a familiar issue for Netroots Nation veterans. Since 2008, the progressive conference and lefty blogger summit has given a voice to reporters who have been working on the front lines of protests. But things have worsened since Occupy erupted, with more than 80 journalists — from credentialed photographers to independent livestreamers — being detained on the beat.
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Read more: http://thephoenix.com/boston/news/139390-dont-taze-us-were-with-the-media/