How to irritate Photographers…

It has been an interesting couple of days. On Wednesday a small group of photographers met with a small group of Met Police Firearms officers for an informal chat.

On Thursday, the Press Gazette reported Photographers agree to blur firearms officers' faces. Reports from photographers attending the meeting were somewhat different from the meeting apparently reported by the Press Gazette.

Whilst the PG probably reported the matter faithfully, according to the information supplied to it by Nigel Howard, (a photographer) and a police officer, (Chief Superintendent Bill Tillbrook, head of CO19), as a result the report put in line bore little relation to what actually took place.

Apart from the fact that it is nonsensical to think that individual photographers whilst on jobs would have the time and facility to pixellate images, this is of course not a decision that photographers could possibly be making. Quite clearly this is the responsibility of the Picture Desk involved.

Howard is quoted by the PG as saying:

“They don’t have a great issue with being photographed; they just want us to obscure their faces… and we are quite prepared to do that,”

After a storm of protest in the following 24 hours Howard issued an e-mail apparently contradicting his earlier quote:

“Further to the meeting earlier in the week with CO19, I must address the issue of pixilating officers faces. Their is a misunderstanding of what exactlly was said at the meeting. It was agreed that the pixilating of CO19 Officers faces would be an Editorial decision, taken by the picture editor and not one that would be taken by photographers.”

The British Photographic Council issued the following statement to the press:

Following an article appearing on the Press Gazette website today (21st Aug 2008), the British Photographic Council is disappointed that the results of an informal meeting between CO19 (Firearms) Officers and a very small number of independent photographers should result in what appears to be reported as an attempt to vary the Metropolitan Police and ACPO Media Guidelines. No recognised photographers' leaders were at the meeting, nor was there any representative of any photographers' organisation, nor was there a representative of any newspaper publisher or broadcast company. Currently, the recognised negotiating team on behalf of the BPC is Jeff Moore of the BPPA, Paul Stewart of NAPA and John Toner of the NUJ. None of these was present when the meeting was called by Nigel Howard, who is an independent freelance photographer who represents no-one but himself.

Paul Stewart said on behalf of the British Photographic Council (BPC), "The Guidelines for police clearly 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. It is a matter for their editors to control what is published or broadcast, not the police. Once images are recorded, we have no power to delete or confiscate them without a court order, even if we think they contain damaging or useful evidence."

The police seem to feel that there is some kind of gentleman's agreement that says that we will always pixellate the face of armed officers. This is not the case and any blurring or pixellation of images would be done by the picture desk on a case by case basis. The report in the Press Gazette stated that the police, "Will be issuing guidelines to all London papers soon." We are relieved to have been assured by the Met Police that this is not in fact true."

BPC Member, Jeff Moore, Chairman of the British Press Photographers Association, said, "It is unacceptable for the police to discuss, informally, with a group of independent photographers, matters such as this and them to then be reported as some form of agreement. For Nigel Howard to see this as, "A step forward in police/press relations" is baffling."

Paul Stewart further stated, "As a result of our raising concerns at the reports of this meeting, the police have now assured us that there have been no new rules set down and that this was a conversation with a group of photographers who had asked to meet with firearms officers and agreed to treat each case on its own merits, as is the existing position and further, no guidelines will be issued by the Met to London picture desks".

John Toner, the National Freelance Organiser of the NUJ added, "The only recent agreement between the Met Police and the Media is that the Met will only negotiate with representatives of organisations and we expect them to honour that.

The British Photographic Council is an umbrella organisation which represents a number of bodies within the UK News Photography Industry.

These include:

AoP BAPLA BPPA CIoJ EPUK NAPA NUJ Pro Imaging


As one of the NUJ representatives on the BPC I am pleased to see that all’s well that ends well.



© Pete Jenkins
www.petejenkins.co.uk
www.photographerspro.eu/pete_jenkins/ www.onlinepictureproof.com/petejenkins