Abstract
Evidence to the Leveson Inquiry has vilified all photographers, damaging the progress they've made with police and public, one of them claims
Trying to change anything in the Met is like trying to kick treacle uphill. Don't take my word for it; that was a former Scotland Yard head of press talking – to photographers who were trying to persuade the Metropolitan Police to get their own police officers to recognise the press card officially recognised by the very same Metropolitan Police service. And why photographers? Because we are the ones at the sharp end. That card held by all journalists – all journalists who work out on the street – was the result of our campaigning. And those talks, over months and years, eventually produced the Met Police/Media guidelines regulating conduct when we come face to face – which recently, I'm delighted to say, are more honoured in the observance than the breach.
But back to where this all started. In 1992, the press card – the National Press Card – came about from the most unlikely turn of events and meeting of minds. Mike Granatt, a new head of press – director of public affairs, actually – determined to make radical change sanctioned by a Met Commissioner who actually welcomed change, decided to bury the old Met card. These were press cards issued by the police themselves, rivalling the card issued by the National Union of Journalists and long resented by the union's members. The commissioner called all concerned around a table, cracked heads, and the resulting UK Press Cards Authority (UKPCA) system is what we still have today. It is designed to meet the conflicting demands of security and the independence of the fourth estate. The card is secure – it even has a chip and a pin! – but is issued by a wide range of media “gatekeepers” who vet the applicants. Bodies such as the NPA, trades unions, television companies and, for press photographers who do not get their cards from any of the others, the British Press Photographers' Association. It is now recognised by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), and ACPO Scotland as well as the Met, and so throughout the United Kingdom.
But what is it for? What exactly does it do? It identifies the bearer, in the words of the UKPCA, as a “newsgatherer”. “Anyone working in the UK whose employment or self-employment is wholly or significantly concerned with the gathering, transport or processing of information or images for publication in broadcast, electronic or written media including TV, radio, internet-based services, newspapers and periodicals; and who needs in the course of those duties to identify themselves in public or other[wise] to official services.” However it provides no privileges for the holder. In New York, a press card has real power. It entitles a photographer, without any qualification, to “cross police and fire lines where formed”. But not here – ours is just an identity card, no more, no less. So then, what of our rights?
There is a long litany of police obstruction
That's where the guidelines, finally published in 2006, come in. Addressing the police, they unequivocally state: “Members of the media have a duty to take photographs and film incidents and we have no legal power or moral responsibility to prevent or restrict what they record.” Well, that's the theory. But, one moment we are being invited, welcomed, as professionals to address police officers before they go out on major public order operations; the next a police officer deliberately targets a photographer, knocking out his teeth (there is incontrovertible video evidence to back up that assertion). There is also a long litany of cases – the examples are legion – of petty obstruction stopping short of physical violence, and not only by the police themselves, but also police community support officers (PCSOs), most of whom do not even understand the law.
Things came to a head a few years ago with Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. We all – professionals and amateurs alike – became suspect terrorists. Unlike Section 43, it permitted searches even without reasonable suspicion; sweeping powers about which the Home Office gave the following guidance: “Police officers can stop and search someone taking photographs within an authorised area just as they can stop and search any other member of the public in the proper exercise of their discretion, but the powers should be used proportionally and not specifically target photographers. Important: Section 44 does not prohibit the taking of photographs, film or digital images in an authorised area and members of the public and the press should not be prevented from doing so in exercise of the powers conferred by section 44.”
That wasn't the experience of photographers working on the street. If you want a clear picture of how that legislation actually worked in practice, try deleting the word “not” throughout. Photographers fought back hard with the I'm A Photographer Not A Terrorist campaign (PHNAT). This culminated in a mass demonstration of photographers in Trafalgar Square which, together with increasing bad publicity and no evidence whatsoever that it has had any effect on terrorism, led the government finally to abandon Section 44 last year (replacing it with Section 47A, an Armalite to the Section 44 blunderbuss and a great improvement).
Paradoxically the underlying trend of police behaviour has been the other way – a gradual sea-change for the better in attitudes. Altering the culture of any organisation takes many years, and the key to it all here was – as ever – education. Talks with senior officers, posters, leaflets – the message slowly but surely filters down the ranks. Today most officers, in London anyway, do actually know a press card when they see one, and do not always greet any reference to the guidelines with a blank uncomprehending stare. We are now beginning to see the results of our influence: courtesy when we present the card; being able to walk through cordons, unless they are locked down as the action starts; and when the action does start, most officers do now accept we have a reason, even a right, to be there.
Just one example: last November when UK Uncut were invading the London offices of mining company Xstrata (why? you ask – another CEO paid millions in these austere times), I went in after them, just far enough to get a few shots of demonstrators storming the staircases up to the roof. But then which way to turn? Here was the story, but “here” was private property; they were clearly trespassing. And, public interest or not, so was I. I decided to make for the exit. Ethical behaviour? Possibly. Somewhat lacking in the dash and guts expected of a press photographer? I'll let someone else be the judge of that. In fact, it was more a case of avoiding being trapped inside as things got going outside on the street.
Just in time I squeezed through a closing gap in the police cordon sealing off the front doors and waited to get the expected shot of a banner, which shortly would be up there on the roof. As it happens, it was a useless shot, banner unreadable, and the best pictures after all would have been protesters getting nicked up top. Anyway, there is a point to all this. A few days later I spoke to a Reuters photographer who'd actually been up there and got the shots I'd missed. But what about the police, I asked? She had, she said, just shown them her press card and they had let her carry on photographing the arrests. But the photographer next to her didn't have a card and was arrested. Taking pictures of police making arrests while out of sight, trespassing on a company rooftop? A few years ago that would have been unthinkable.
Today the main threat to our right to work on the street comes from a completely different quarter. A group of people who you would least expect, who carry the press card, just like us: phone hackers, phone-hacking hacks. When the Leveson Inquiry into Phone Hacking became the Leveson Inquiry into Door Stepping, we suddenly became public enemy number one. The lightning rod, the obvious target, the easy target. Celebrities queued up to denounce us and all our works. In the eyes of the police we had all been terrorist suspects. In the eyes of the public, we are now all paparazzi. But we in fact are still what we always were: the eyes of the public. Those police guidelines again, speaking of all journalists now: “We are the eyes and ears of the public. The role of the police is to act as the law enforcement executive of that same public. It is our role to report on matters of public interest.”
The remedies are already there in law
And that's it in a nutshell. We have a right to take pictures in public. If we transgress the law, the police are there to enforce it. We don't want or need either state regulation or French-style privacy law. The remedies for assault, harassment, trespass and invasion of privacy are all there in the law as it stands. But we cannot, dare not, leave it at that. Take the question put to Darren Lyons, head of the paparazzi agency Big Pictures, when giving evidence to Leveson. About incidents where photographers clearly crossed any line you care to draw. Was any disciplinary action taken or guidance given by Big Pictures?
A plan was proposed at a recent meeting of the UKPCA. We first created the National Press Card to defend our rights. It should now also protect the rights of the public. We need to draw up a new code of ethical conduct for card carriers. Failure to abide by such a code would lead to its withdrawal. Then the first question picture editors should ask of any picture prompting ethical concerns is: “Was that taken by a carrier of the UKPCA card?” Other photographs would still be published, even the work of “citizen journalists”, but they would require a much more rigorous checking procedure. This would strike the right balance between regulation – self regulation – and the freedom of the press.
Without such measures in place we are left with Heather Mills's call (Leveson again) for photographers to be licensed and papers to use only the pictures of licensed photographers or risk being “struck off” a register. Paul Dacre of the Mail group has now presented our plans (in rather more draconian form) to Leveson as his own. That is flattering, but it is alarming to hear him describing as “haphazard” the press card and the UKPCA system with its multiple gatekeepers. The number of card issuers is in fact one of our greatest strengths, and the UKPCA has a proven track record going back 20 years. Here, again speaking to Leveson, is Neil Turner of the British Press Photographers' Association: “The gatekeepers of the organisation who form the UK Press Card Authority are a deliberately diverse bunch and they operate in such a way that no single person needs to apply for that press card through one single route. So as a photographer I can get my press card through the BPPA, I can join the NUJ, I might do it through the NPA, and that's a really important principle because, you know, if as a photographer you fall foul of one particular organisation, you can still apply for a press card through one of the others as long as you haven't committed offences and had your press card suspended.”
Whatever happens next, the basics of any scheme are clear. More stringent vetting of applicants (no more press cards for private investigators, thank you very much). An agreed code of ethics which could draw on existing codes such as those of the PCC and the NUJ. And the sanction of withdrawing the card, which would necessarily involve an appeals procedure. Here are Lord Leveson's parting words to Neil Turner: “Mr Turner, thank you very much indeed. Responsible photographers, like responsible journalists, are not part of the problem and they do need to be part of the solution.” Yes we do. But that means facing up to putting our own house in order. At least Leveson has concentrated minds. This will require finance, administration and the co-operation of all concerned. It's over to us now. We are now the ones who mustn't stand in the way of change.