Category: Access & Censorship
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Yemeni president pardons reporter Obama wanted kept in jail
Link: he earned the ire of U.S. and Yemeni authorities for his reporting that revealed that a December 2009 bombing in the village of Majalla in the southern province of Abyan was an American cruise-missile attack that killed dozens of civilians, including 14 women and 21 children,rather than a Yemeni airstrike on an al Qaida…
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Syria: Jonathan Alpeyrie hostage by Michel Puech
Link: On April 29, they tell me that they’re going to see another group of fighters. It was a trap. I got into a 4×4 with the katiba officer, my fixer and two soldiers. We came to a checkpoint where masked men took me out of the car, forced me to kneel and pretended to…
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Judge Dismisses Privacy Lawsuit Against “Voyeur” Artist Arne Svenson
Link: “An artist may create and sell a work of art that resembles an individual without his or her written consent,” Judge Rakower wrote in her decision, underscoring a central principle of the case.
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SDX Foundation Funds National Police, Journalist Training
Link: The goal of the program is to foster greater understanding and awareness of the right to take photographs and record video in public without being interfered with, harassed or arrested.
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Rob Hornstra denied Russian visa; Moscow exhibition of The Sochi Project cancelled
Link: You can’t eat ‘reach’ and we can’t pay salaries with ‘brand awareness’. I don’t pretend to know other people’s business models or strategies. But successful business practices are always about having a close understanding of the costs of what you produce and the origins and mechanics of your revenues and more than anything else…
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McClatchy updates policy on handout photos: ‘it’s important to take a stance’
Link: The editors of McClatchy newspapers have agreed not to publish photography issued by the White House as part of a follow-up to concerns raised by news organizations over the administration’s increasingly stringent photo policies.
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Reporters covering Sarah Palin book-signing are locked in a room at Walmart
Jim Romenesko via Jim Romenesko: http://jimromenesko.com/2013/11/14/reporters-covering-sarah-palin-book-signing-are-locked-in-a-room-at-walmart/ Philip Bump is told that guard keeping an eye on the reporters in the back room was provided by Palin’s camp
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Open Up The Oval
Link: The White House claims to be perplexed by this because, after all, they hired “one of your own” as they said, Pete Souza, to be Obama’s photographer. Can’t you trust Pete, they rhetorically asked? And his pictures are available for free, they pointed out, on the White House Flickr Web site. What’s the problem?
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Suspicionless searches at US border: the next battleground for press freedom
Link: US Customs and Border Patrol agents can detain American citizens for hours and seize laptops and phones without evidence or suspicion of wrongdoing. This has happened to a number of journalists, and press advocates worry that the frequency of these incidents is increasing.
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Baltimore police forcibly remove Sun photo editor from a shooting scene
Jim Romenesko via Jim Romenesko: http://jimromenesko.com/2014/03/07/baltimore-police-forcibly-remove-sun-photo-editor-from-a-shooting-scene/ So why doesn’t Walmart just follow GettyMart’s example? Why not make 35 million products available for free like GettyMart has? Won’t that solve their shoplifting problem? After all, if you listen to the official word out of GettyMart, they see no other way to combat their electronic shoplifting except…
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Why The US Government Hasn’t Released Photos Of UBL’s Corpse
Why the White House hasn’t released photos of Osama bin Laden’s corpse There are a lot of puzzled expressions on people’s faces when it comes to the subject of the late Osama bin Laden and why the White House has not via SOFREP: https://sofrep.com/news/why-us-govt-hasnt-released-photos-ubl-corpse/ There are a lot of puzzled expressions on people’s faces when…
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Halliburton to media: We grant interviews only if you agree not to portray us in a negative light
Jim Romenesko via Jim Romenesko: http://jimromenesko.com/2014/03/20/halliburton-will-let-reporters-interview-employees-only-if-they-agree-not-to-portray-halliburton-in-a-negative-light/ I never planned on becoming a photographer. But just like a great photo, it was a matter of coincidence… a combination of, “right time, right place”. I was lucky. For the past forty years, I’ve been a commercial photographer. Those assignments introduced me to people that I never thought…
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Google Under Fire for Data-Mining Student Email Messages
Google Under Fire for Data-Mining Student Email Messages The company acknowledges scanning the emails of Apps for Education users and faces allegations in a federal lawsuit that it built “surreptitious user profiles” for advertising purposes. via Education Week: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/03/13/26google.h33.html “This should draw the attention of the U.S. Department of Education, the Federal Trade Commission, and…
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Al Jazeera journalists to be tried on World Press Freedom Day
Al Jazeera journalists to be tried on World Press Freedom Day Three journalists detained in Egypt for allegedly aiding a “terrorist organisation” will appear in court on Saturday, World Press Freedom Day. via The Mail & Guardian: http://mg.co.za/article/2014-05-01-al-jazeera-journalists-to-be-tried-on-world-press-freedom-day They are charged with aiding members of a “terrorist organisation”, with the Egyptian government saying they operated…
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Why There Aren’t Any Photos of Hamas Fighters (and Why the NYT, Tyler Hicks and Photographers Have Been Unfairly Blamed) — BagNews
Link: The gist of the argument is that Hicks and the other Western photographers could easily seek out and photograph Hamas fighters, and thus balance out the coverage, but they have been too bullied and intimidated to do so.
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Getty photographer arrested, released in Ferguson | Poynter.
Link: “I want to be able to do my job as a member of the media and not be arrested for just doing my job,” Scott Olson said in a statement from Getty Images. The company “condemns Scott’s arrest,” vice-president for news Pancho Bernasconi said.
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Journalist blames inexperienced photographer in Steven Sotloff kidnapping | dvafoto
Link: Daily Beast published a piece by Ben Taub titled “Was U.S. Journalist Steven Sotloff a Marked Man?” In the article, Taub describes the actions of a freelance journalist (named “Alex” for the article, but later revealed to be Montreal photographer Yves Choquette) who he says compromised the identity of his fixer on the Syria/Turkey…
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ISIS has killed 17 Iraqi journalists over past 10 months | dvafoto
Link: I’ve worked around the world for National Geographic magazine but the most elusive assignment for me has been just 50 miles from my home. In the summer of 2006 I was commissioned to create a portfolio celebrating South Carolina’s ACE Basin. It’s a special place where three rivers and a community came together to…
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The War Over the US Government’s Unreleased Torture Pictures | WIRED
The War Over the US Government’s Unreleased Torture Pictures Even as President Obama denounces the “enhanced interrogation” employed by the CIA and outlined in a scathing Senate report, his administration continues blocking the release of some 2,100 photographs taken in Iraq and Afghanistan depicting alleged torture. via WIRED: https://www.wired.com/2014/12/war-us-governments-unreleased-torture-pictures/ Even as President Obama denounces the…
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Gunmen storm Paris satirical newspaper, killing at least 12 – The Washington Post
Charlie Hebdo suspect said to surrender; two others at large after Paris terror attack A manhunt is underway after 12 people were killed in a terror attack at the offices of a satirical paper, the country’s deadliest terror attack in modern memory. via Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/gunmen-storm-paris-satirical-newspaper-killing-at-least-11/2015/01/07/f358b17a-9660-11e4-aabd-d0b93ff613d5_story.html French officials immediately raised the country’s terrorism alert to…