Methinks the Daily Tele story about police profit from filming is actually trumps. Credit where it’s due. And not that isn’t a free pass for fatty Piers.

To omit these two elements would be to misunderstand the phalanx of factors needed to DO good community or any media. I am a bit weak on production values no doubt (though always improving) but I’m pretty good on legals and political analysis having done it at the coal face for years and years. So here in is a little lecture:

My reasoning: The big media already have the structure for Right to Know. Once I put the civil liberties issue in that politically loaded framework here on your blog and the Holmes a Court blog it effectively ‘gives permission’ to big press to go for it within their existing hierarchy. Beyond the frame at that early time. That early frame was “it really happened”, “it’s news” “the complainant has credibility” as asserted by Marg in her pre holiday heartfelt post.

The second crucial factor is that there is a fairly worn legal path now this last 6 to 9 months of recognised journos like Matt Khoury of News Corp doing freelance or out of hours news gathering and getting done over by the police in the same way. Khoury wrote it up in Media in The Oz. Chris Merrit then wrote about my bloke Oliver Hopes as legal editor for The Oz, that I helped run a case for the son of an abc staffer, all embarrassing to the police. In conclusion: the legals had been flushed out as favouring the citizen journalist. This was hard coal face grind. It didn’t just happen. People like Khoury and Hopes and yes me deserve credit for that hard work.

A sub set of the legal/political analysis of this story is that the NSW Police Assistant Commissioner has literally called for citizens to be cyber deputies so it’s pretty inconsistent to now say they should self censor. Hence the SMH from memory actually carried in their recent story the Police bosses have decided to tell their mob the public have the right to film them doing their work.

(Also a similar type of scenario – was being blacklisted for 12 months off Sydney Uni campus for daring to report an education rally pre federal election – by pseudo police namely contract security, some literally off duty coppers apparently, not beloved of the tenured security on campus either.)

Now the latest impacting development. Over the holiday break. News Corp Sydney Daily Telegraph splash with the ulterior motive angle – police in nsw are selling access for filming of dramatic events to tv entertainment shows. That is protecting their franchise. Ah ha. Follow the money eh? Can’t have bloggers giving it away for free. Here’s the story, and it’s a damn fine bit of work if you ask me in the bundle:

Police profit as TV pays up for reality crime shows | The Daily Telegraph 29 Dec 2008

at http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24850227-5006014,00.html

So my summary of viable and good citizen reportage taking on state power includes – legal back up, good Right to Know moral principles, quality production skills, solidarity amongst practitioners in the public interest. All necessary, one or two likely way insufficient.

Like Marg the guru here, I would say good job folks, little and big media. One could say even the police will benefit from the discipline in time. Transparency is ‘a good thing’ like that.

...] to the recent example discussed by Margaret Simons’ at The Content Makers of Police misbehaviour in New South Wales, the NT Ombudsman’s Report for 2007/2008 details a [...