Observations of a Jailed Journalist

by John Farley
September 27, 2011
Metro Focus - WNET-Public Media
http://www.thirteen.org/metrofocus/news/2011/09/observations-of-a-jailed-journalist/

Video -
http://www.thirteen.org/metrofocus/wp-content/themes/metrofocus/images/video-flag-InPost.png

On Sept. 24, while working on a story about citizen
journalism for my employer, I found myself arrested,
along with many other people. My arrest gave me a unique
vantage point on the risks and rewards of citizen
journalists, those non-professionals who capture stories
(usually without pay) using videos and images via
portable technology like a cell phone camera. Anyone,
even a passerby or a police officer can be a citizen
journalist. That's its power.

Here's what happened.

My colleague Sam Lewis and I had previously covered
Occupy Wall Street, an ongoing demonstration against
economic inequality, on the first day it began, Sept.17.

Throughout that day we noticed many protesters using
their mobile devices to document their own experience,
sometimes for themselves or their own blogs, sometimes
to share with bona fide media organizations. So, midday
this past Saturday, Sept. 24, we headed to Union Square,
where the Occupy Wall Street protesters had marched that
morning from Lower Manhattan.

When we first arrived on the scene, protesters were
marching along the sidewalk in unison, chanting. There
was no sense of chaos. Many held video and audio
recording devices, including camera phones.
However, the stream of protesters did disrupt traffic.
Pedestrians wove in and out of the mass of protesters,
some on their way to do Saturday errands, others who
joined in for a block or two, chanting with the masses.

Sam and I were on the sidewalk observing the action. She
was taking photographs, while I was juggling my
reporter's notebook and the audio recorder we'd brought
along to interview protesters about how they were using
media throughout the day.

As more people spilled into the street, police started
to demand that protesters stay on the sidewalk. But as
people seemed to be retreating from harm's way, police
began pushing the protesters. I saw police use large
nets to corral people en masse. I watched as police
pepper sprayed several young women in the face. (An NYPD
spokesperson confirmed the use of pepper spray to
MetroFocus.) I saw senior citizens and teenagers get
arrested. I saw about 20 or 30 police officers tackle
people and prod them roughly with police batons.

WATCH VIDEO:
Peaceful Female Protestors Penned in the Street

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moD2JnGTToA

Video of the young female protesters against whom
MetroFocus reporter John Farley saw the police use
pepper spray. The headlines for this video was chosen by
YouTube. Youtube/TheOther99Percent.

With nearly every arrest, the demonstrators called out
for "cameras, cameras" - urging others to document the
events - and chanted in unison "The whole world is
watching! The whole world is watching!"

When I saw the young women get pepper sprayed, I ran
over to interview them. While holding a microphone and
wearing a badge identifying myself as an employee of
"WNET - New York Public Media," I found myself suddenly
roped into one of the large nets. I was thrown against a
wall and handcuffed with hard plastic zip-tie
restraints. I sat on the sidewalk with about 50 others.
I yelled over and over "I'm press! I'm with WNET
MetroFocus! Please do not arrest me."

I did not possess the press credentials that NYPD
allocates to journalists. (As MetroFocus is less than
three months old, neither I nor my journalist colleagues
have yet met the NYPD's qualifications.) So even though
I work as a professional journalist, the NYPD lumped me
in with everybody else.

Lumped me in indeed. I was in police custody for nine
hours, eight of which I spent in a jail cell at the 1st
Precinct.

An NYPD spokesperson told MetroFocus on Monday that 87
people have been arrested in total since the Occupy Wall
Street protests began last weekend; however, the Daily
News reported that at least 80 people were arrested on
Sept. 24 alone, mostly on charges of disorderly conduct
and obstructing traffic. The NYPD would not comment
further on my arrest.

Before we were all jailed, they took away everybody's
possessions, including our notebooks, pens, cameras,
recording devices and mobile phones. We were separated
by gender.

My cellmates were about 35 other men. Most of them were
protesters, with at least two bystanders who were
snatched up while snapping souvenir photos in the
afternoon mayhem. Most had spent quite a bit of time
documenting the events of the day, including their
arrests, with whatever media tools they had at their
disposal.

My cellmate JRL, who preferred to be identified only by
his initials, is a 23-year-old Brooklynite. He
identified himself as a citizen journalist who streams
live footage through Twitter. "We like the terminology
`grassroots media,' where people in the march were
literally marching with laptops and webcams so that they
could live broadcast. I think it's an immediate, never
before possible edge," said JRL. He was arrested while
carrying his Canon 7D camera.

Multiple videos from Sept. 24 show police arresting
people holding cameras and audio equipment. An NYPD
spokesperson told ABC News that the police were not
targeting camera operators.

I don't know precisely why I was arrested, though I have
been charged with disorderly conduct. But what I
realized is that in a sudden burst of urban chaos, how
can the police distinguish between passersby and
protesters who may be committing civil disobedience or
any other type of punishable offense? Or between citizen
journalists and professional journalists?

The arrest of my cell mate, Sam Queary, 24, adds another
dimension to the issue: that of the inadvertent,
spontaneous citizen journalist. Queary happened to be at
work at Grey Dog Cafe near Union Square when the
protesters marched by.

"I heard a commotion and went outside to find cops
macing women and arresting people and hitting people
with nightsticks, so I started taking pictures," said
Queary. "I followed a young, black male as he was being
accosted by five cops. As I tried to take a picture I
was pushed away. I asked why I was pushed away and then
the next thing you know I was being judo flipped."

WATCH VIDEO:
Arrested for Talking to a Cop
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNyMr6VmGJo

Someone with a video camera documented John Farley's
cell-mate Sam Queary being "judo-flipped" by NYPD and
arrested as he was photographing others being arrested.
The video, shot by an unknown citizen journalist, has
been widely broadcast and linked to by media outlets
around the world. The headline for this video was chosen
by YouTube. Youtube/LibertyPlazaRev.

I also met Rosa A., 33, in the police van while we were
being transported to the 1st Precinct for processing.
She had been shopping at the Barnes and Noble on Union
Square when she saw the protesters outside. As many New
Yorkers do when they see something unusual, she snapped
a picture. And she was arrested.

"I've never been arrested," said Rosa A., in visible
pain from the plastic handcuffs. "I was just there
looking at magazines." She laughed, lightening the mood
in the police van. Even our arresting officer, in the
van with us,  chuckled.

Between when the Occupy Wall Street protests began on
Sept. 17 and this weekend's wave of media coverage
stemming from the arrests, the protesters have
complained about being largely ignored by traditional
media, including the major national and even
metropolitan newspapers, the cable TV news channels and
the local network news stations. Meanwhile, argue the
protesters, similarly sized Tea Party demonstrations in
recent years have received considerable coverage. The
general consensus among the Occupy Wall Street
protesters was that it was important to document
constantly what is happening, and to present their own
story when other media hasn't.

The protesters have also claimed that the media coverage
they did receive painted them in an unflattering light
and hasn't accurately represented them. Saturday's  New
York Times article characterized the protesters as
uninformed, mostly white hippies and trust-funded anti-
capitalists. As a result, the protesters I spoke with
were quite media savvy and conscious of their need to
represent themselves in an attempt to legitimize their
cause, which they've been doing on their website, on
Twitter and on Youtube. In fact, they have an entire
media team assembled at Zuccotti Park in Lower
Manhattan, where about a dozen laptops are being powered
by a portable generator, and citizen journalists are
constantly uploading new footage.

The Occupy Wall Street demonstrators have been
criticized, including in the aforementioned New York
Times piece, as unorganized and lacking in any concrete
goals, other than to raise awareness about economic
corruption.

But as we all sat in a jail, I noticed an interesting
thing happen.

People began to talk very seriously about organizing in
a more cohesive way than they have been. Jailhouse
rookies, who had never been arrested or involved in
radical political activities, listened attentively as
experienced activists spoke about the need to set clear
demands in order to rally broader public support for
specific outcomes.

I don't know what's going to happen to Occupy Wall
Street as a movement. Maybe it will fizzle out, maybe it
will grow. I do know that whatever happens will be
documented. And I know that there's a history of
activist movements being bolstered when leaders and
followers alike are jailed together.

My cellmate Daniel Gross, a protester who volunteers as
an organizer with the Industrial Workers of the World
Union, helped create the first union for Starbucks
employees.

"I think the NYPD is really going to try to spin what
happened today," Gross told the group, as he handed out
his contact information. "I think that we should
organize our own press conference."

Around 10:30 p.m. the police began letting us leave our
cell in groups of two. Before leaving, many traded
contact information through smuggled business cards and
contraband pens.

The still-jailed cheered the newly free.

___________________________________________

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