update: The crew in question is not from Univision 23 (the Miami affiliate) but from another division within Univision. Apologies for any confusion created
found this on ‘Photography is Not a Crime’, great blog by the way, should check it out.
Below a video, shot by Ron Paul supporter in Miami recently, that caught a Univision 23 crew telling that person he had no right to record them without their permission while everyone was on a public street.
The Univision 23 photog can be heard telling the supporter he can’t record him, that only he can record video because “I’m the press, not you”! Then kicks it up a notch by trying to sick the nearby cop on that daring faux citizen journalist! Serious, what is this Cuba?! And what if the guy was one of those iReport, uReport, viewers send us some news viewer? Check out the video below, it’s a gem
These two are easily winning our just invented ‘SFLTV Douchebags of the Day’ award!
Um yes, this is (North)Cuba.
As a former journalist, I must say… you should check your facts and the FL state statutes that address this very issue, before going on a rant agains tthis news crew. Photography is not a crime, but recording audio without the consent of the subject is. In the state of Florida, you cannot record audio without the person you are recording, having consented. So don’t go off and label the media the fourt arm of the goverment, without checking yourself. You only make yourself look ridiculous!
are you sure?!
yes I am!
There is no crime in being an absolute pain in the butt, while a reporter tries to conduct an interview… but recording audio with consent is against the law.
ok well since you’re sure then I guess this is wrong
“Florida’s wiretapping law is a “two-party consent” law. Florida makes it a crime to intercept or record a “wire, oral, or electronic communication” in Florida, unless all parties to the communication consent. See Fla. Stat. ch. 934.03. Florida law makes an exception for in-person communications when the parties do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the conversation, such as when they are engaged in conversation in a public place where they might reasonably be overheard”
Source: Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard University
As a current journalist blogger I must say, you should check *your* facts on the FL statues that address this very issue before criticizing others. So don’t go off lecturing others without checking yourself. You only make yourself look ridiculous! Former journalist.
Regards
I’ll give you that “admin”. The letter of the law does appear to make an exception for this particular scenario. I guess that shoving a camera phone in a reporters face while they are trying to work, just to prove a point and be a jerk, is allowable under the exception. It was a public place, and I guess that if you shove the camera in their faces, you can “reasonably overhaear” what they’re saying. Regardless, as a journalist, you should understand and appreciate how irritating it is, when you’re trying to do your job and conduct an interview, only to have someone come around and try in impede the process just to “exercise their 1st ammendment rights”. That’s all I was really trying to get prove. There is a time and a place for everything.
first, in the video you can see the person was filming the guy with the sign as they were trying to shoosh him off by even claiming, falsely, to the police officer the sign holder was drunk. In the course of that the Univision woman came up at the camera and started talking with the person recording. Followed by the photog who made a big deal of the recording acting like he’s all that.
Second, they were in a public space, outdoors in the open, on a public street with other people around where there is no expectation of privacy. These two so called journalists enjoy first amendment protections and as representatives of the free excersise thereof, have no business asking cops to shove someone away because he’s not part of their clique! The days of “official” journalists being gatekeepers to all that is news are over and done with, thankfully I’d add after seeing these two members of the media. Somehow I thought mostly management got a stiffy from being the deciders of what’s news(worthy) but I guess I was wrong.
Three, since you have an issue with someone shoving a camera in someone’s face then I trust you have the same objections to shoving microphones and cameras in other people’s faces – like oh I don’t know, a murder victim’s family – by going to their home and knocking on their door, digging up their phone number calling them for comment, and stalking them outside courtrooms or the ER etc.. Right?
@Former Journalist
Chances are, that’s probably why you are a former journalist. Much like these bush-league idiots who are imposing their own “laws” on the general public; People with this kind of mindset have no business in Media, let alone be allowed to carry a a kids tape recorder and polaroid camera.
I was going to post a lengthy message regarding the privacy exemptions in public places but the Admin beat me to the punch. This is the hot topic of our technological era as more and more people carry small, portable recording devices while media, police and other people of perceived power try desperately to rewrite constitutional rights of Americans in order to stifle citizen journalism.
Whomever this “former journalist” is he is dead wrong. The law about recording someone has to do only when they are not aware that they are being recorded. This guy with the cell-phone camera did nothign wrong. he is on a public street and he can tape whatever he wants and record whatever he wants. As long as he’s not sticking the camera in windows on private homes, he hasn’t broken any law. if there is a polie line set up, they may have to put him on the other side but, other than that he can record whatever he wants. This is a First Amendment issue and it a freedom of the press issue. The man with the cell phone camera is technically press anyway since he is reporting something. You don’t have to work for Univision to be onyl considered press. As for the Univision cameraman and reporter, they should be re-educated of possible suspended. They embarrassed Univision by talking on camera and technically threatening a citizen that he was breaking the law. he was breaking no laws. if the cameraman and repprter really think he was breaking the law, then they don’t know the law or the first amendment and they shoudn’t be journalists. The police officer did the right thing to do nothing. he knows the first amendment. As for the man standing behind the reporter with teh sign, there’s nothing wrong with that either. I was a Tv reporter and, guess what, some people are nosey or idiots. When someone gets too close, you ask them politely to back up just a little and they will still be in the shot anyway. Usually that difuses the situation. If they continue and you really don’t want them in the shot, then do the interview up against a wall or near your live truck or up against that fence that was in the background. If the person standing there tries to hit you with the sign or pushes into you because they want to be in the shot so bad, then get the cop to arrest them for battery. This former journalist guy is wrong, wrong, wrong and I am surprised that a ‘journalist” would not know what the law or Constitution really says.
Reporters and camera crews grant each other professional courtesy when interviewing a person on public property, like a politician or witness to an accident; but they have all the right to shove their mic flags into each others shot.