Resources for journalists covering the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte

By Andria Krewson

Here’s a link roundup of resources available for journalists covering the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.

Many come from our successful July 28 seminar, “Ready, Set, Go,” on covering conventions. University of North Carolina student and journalist Melissa Abbey wrote a summary of that seminar, and Society of Professional Journalists National President John Ensslin, who has covered three national conventions, spoke at the seminar and shared his tips on his blog.

Note: The law allows police in North Carolina and Florida to search your digital devices if you are being arrested, according to Andy Sellers of the Digital Media Law Project. Sellers also notes that digital networks in crowds can become overloaded, so do not count on your phone to work. Consider using old-fashioned paper identification and reference materials as a backup.


For emergencies

If you run into trouble and can tweet, a couple of moves might come in handy.



• Please feel free to send a tweet to the Greater Charlotte Society of Professional Journalists’ account at @charlottespj if you run into legal issues. Ensslin notes in his roundup that national SPJ has a legal defense fund.
• 
Free Press uses the tag #journarrest for cases in which journalists are arrested.
• From the National Press Photographers’ Association, General Counsel Mickey Osterreicher is tweeting from @nppalawyer.
• From the North Carolina ACLU, Chris Brook, legal director, is available for your calls at his office (919-834-3466) or cell phone (919-830-4228).
• Charlotte-Mecklenburg police representatives have held several meetings with local media and community members. Deputy Police Chief Harold Medlock met with the Greater Charlotte Chapter of SPJ in June. Here are notes from that meeting.

The roundup

John Ensslin’s tips, with his own advice as well as tips from other experienced journalists.

The Digital Media Law Project’s guide to reporting at the 2012 Republican and Democratic national conventions, including a one-page, crammed-to-the-gills cheat sheet
.

Free Press, the International News Safety Institute and Harvard University’s Digital Media Law Project teamed up for a webinar on safety for journalists while covering conventions. Replay available here. One excellent advance tip from this webinar: treat the DNC as a long hike, bring snacks and water and plan ahead with a map to avoid being “kettled.”

Know your rights, from the ACLU, with a one-pager full of resources.

Covering the conventions and protests, from the National Press Photographers Association (updating live from the Republican National Convention)
.

No rebar, lots of sunscreen: Covering the Democratic National Convention, a concise roundup by UNC student Melissa Abbey of the Greater Charlotte Society of Professional Journalists’ July 28 seminar.

7 Rules for Recording Police, by Steve Silverman at Gizmodo.

The National Lawyers’ Guild

Privacy and security for mobile phones and other devices using voice and data networks, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The surveillance self-defense project from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Charlotte Mecklenburg online form for filing a complaint about an officer.

Social media resources

Many of these came from a Poynter chat led by Mallary Tenore on Aug. 24 with Ethan Klapper, Jeff Sonderman and Charlotte’s own Mary Curtis.

• Phone apps and a map for covering the DNC, including screenshots of apps from the Charlotte Observer and the DNC host committee.
• A Charlotte DNC Twitter guide by Ted Boyd, director of Historic South End, a subsidiary of Charlotte’s Center City Partners. It includes hashtags and local media accounts.
• Tumblr’s elections.
• Five apps for tracking and fact-checking political news.
• How to verify – and when to publish – news accounts posted on social media, from Poynter.
• A replay of the Poynter chat on using social media in election coverage.
• 25 ways to use Facebook, Twitter and Storify to improve political coverage.
• From the Atlantic: “9 Concrete, Specific Things We Actually Know About How Social Media Shape Elections.”

SPJ seminar: Covering the Democratic National Convention in 2012

By Andria Krewson

We’ve organized a Saturday seminar on July 28 with experienced reporters, academics and insiders to help journalists prepare for the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.

Speakers include Charles Bierbauer of the University of South Carolina, Rob Christensen of the Raleigh News & Observer and senior political reporter in North Carolina, Michael Bitzer of Catawba College, Susan Stabley of the Charlotte Business Journal and more.

To register, visit coverdnc.eventbrite.com Students and SPJ members pay $15, and non-members pay $25. That helps us cover lunch and space, at UNC Charlotte Center City. A walking tour of uptown Charlotte is part of the seminar. Informal beverages, separate from the seminar, will follow somewhere in uptown Charlotte. (Details to come.)

Schedule

8:30 – 9 a.m. Registration
9 – 9:50 a.m. Evolution of the Political Conventions
Dr. Dan Grano, Associate Professor of Communication Studies at UNC Charlotte
10 – 10:50 a.m. Covering Protests; How Journalists Can Avoid Getting Arrested
Christopher Brook, North Carolina ACLU Legal Director
Mark Newbold, Charlotte Police Attorney
Moderator: Susan Stabley, Charlotte Business Journal reporter
11 – 11:50 a.m. DNC Orienteering Session
Dr. Michael Bitzer, Associate Professor of Politics & History, Catawba College
Samuel Spencer, IV, President of the Young Democrats of North Carolina (YDNC) and a 2008 Presidential Elector
Vani Hari, DNC delegate (attended the 2008 DNC in Denver)
Noon – 12:50 p.m. Lunch and Tips for Covering the DNC
Rob Christensen, Raleigh News & Observer reporter
John Ensslin, President of the National Society of Professional Journalists
1 – 1:50 p.m. Storytelling In and Around the DNC
Charles Bierbauer, Dean, College of Mass Communications and Information Studies at the University of South Carolina, University of South Carolina
2 – 2:50 p.m. Visual/Audio Coverage of the DNC
Carrie Hofmann, Assistant News Director at WCNC-TV; covered the 2008 DNC in Denver
Sid Bedingfield, Journalism Professor at the University of South Carolina
Josh Davis, Videographer; Journalism Graduate student at UNC Chapel Hill
3 – 3:50 p.m. Uptown Charlotte Walking Tour
Tour Guide: Susan Stabley, Charlotte Business Journal reporter
4:00 p.m. Happy Hour (Uptown venue to be determined)

Diabetes blogger sues N.C. health board that said he violated law

Steve Cooksey, a Charlotte-area health blogger, has sued the N.C. Board of Dietetics/Nutrition after the agency sent him correspondence that said he violated laws by posting health advice.
The Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm out of Arlington, Va., is representing Cooksey.
More from Karen Garloch, health and medical writer at the Charlotte Observer:

Steve Cooksey wants to help other people lose weight and get their diabetes under control the way he did, by eating a low-carbohydrate, meat-and-vegetables diet.

So, like many people today, he started a blog to share his experience and offer advice.

But when the N.C. Board of Dietetics/Nutrition contacted him about possible violations of state law for dispensing diet advice without a license, he says that had the effect of censorship.

This week, the 50-year-old Stanley man filed suit in U.S. District Court in Charlotte, claiming the state board has violated his First Amendment rights to free speech by putting limits on what he can say.

“Making Mr. Cooksey get a dietitian’s license to give advice is like making Dear Abby get a psychologist’s license,” said Jeff Rowes, a lawyer for the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit public interest law firm that is representing Cooksey.

Find Garloch’s full story here, (though that link might die after some time passes.) And see the Institute for Justice’s story about the diabetes blogger case.

– Andria Krewson

Linkfest: Photographers’ rights, in preparation for the Democratic National Convention

A photographer aims at his subject, taken by James Willamor.

Here’s a linkfest for people looking for information about photographers’ and videographers’ rights, compiled by James Willamor, to help visual journalists planning to cover the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. The list also includes links to some stories about photographers being arrested while covering Occupy protests elsewhere.

The big photojournalist organizations

SPJ – Society of Professional Journalists – Photojournalism toolbox (maybe the best source of links)
ASMP – American Society of Media Photographers (deals more with
copyright issues)
PPA – Professional Photographers of America (copyright issues)
NPPA – National Press Photographers Association (1st Amendment issues)
NPAA advocacy blog
NPAA code of ethics
NPAA guide to business practices

List of photography rights/ethics links

ACLU list of photography rights
ACLU – You Have Every Right to Photograph That Cop
Bert P. Krages, attorney The Photographer’s Right (a simple
handout popular for its succinctness)
First Amendment Center – Photography and the First Amendment
Time Lightbox – Fight for Your Right: Resources for Photographers Covering Protests
Photojournalism, An Ethical Approach by Paul Martin Lester (at Fullerton University)
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press – Photographers guide to
privacy
Pixiq – Rights and Respect in photography

Other

Carlos Miller – Photography is Not a Crime (reports on photographers’ rights news/cases)

Photographers being arrested covering Occupy protests

Vanity Fair – An Oral History of a Vanity Fair Photographer’s Arrest
at Occupy Wall Street
Washington Post – Photojournalist arrested at Occupy D.C.(links to
other arrest stories)
Poynter – Three-time Wisconsin “Photographer of the Year” arrested during Occupy rally

The state of the society: SPJ President John Ensslin speaks in Charlottte

John Ensslin, national president of the Society of Professional Journalists, spoke on the state of the society during a visit to Charlotte on Jan. 27. The organization’s national board held its winter meeting in Charlotte.

Ensslin’s speech emphasizes the strengths of the society: continuity, ethics, Quill magazine and support tools for individual journalists facing challenges while doing their jobs.

Ensslin and SPJ have been champions for journalists arrested while covering Occupy Wall Street protests. Ensslin has written thoughtful editorials and promises future support, and the society’s Legal Defense Fund provides legal assistance to individual journalists.

Ensslin, who was in Denver during the Democratic National Convention of 2008, also spoke to the challenges and fun ahead for the Charlotte chapter as the convention comes to Charlotte in September.

(Video from Rhiannon Bowman, text here from Andria Krewson.)

Use caution, Charlotte SPJ urges police

The Greater Charlotte Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is urging police and city administrators in North Carolina to use care and discretion as they respond to protest demonstrations that media reporters are covering.

According to the Associated Press, at least six credentialed journalists have been arrested or detained recently while covering protests in Chapel Hill and New York. Reporters have also been arrested in Atlanta, Nashville, Milwaukee and Richmond, Va.

“Unrest in our country is spurring protests, and it will continue to do so,” said Frank Barrows, the Charlotte chapter president and former managing editor of the Charlotte Observer. “The Democratic National Convention next year in Charlotte is apt to have many demonstrations accompanying it. So, especially now, it is critical that police throughout North Carolina develop the capacity to perceive — particularly in heated moments — the difference between protesters, who can sometimes be unruly and occasionally even break laws, and journalists legitimately on the scene to cover the news as a function of democracy.”

SPJ, a century-old national organization with more than 9,000 members, has called for all charges against the journalists recently arrested to be dropped. In those instances, the journalists were either wearing press credentials or explained to police that they were reporters covering the protests. They were clearly exercising the constitutional right of a free press.

“We know that as protests escalate it may be difficult for police to distinguish bystanders from participants, but it is clear now that many journalists have been erroneously arrested without cause,” SPJ national president John Ensslin said. “These errors must be rectified immediately.”

Founded in 1909 as Sigma Delta Chi, SPJ promotes the free flow of information vital to a well-informed citizenry; works to inspire and educate the next generation of journalists; and protects First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and press.

For more information on the Greater Charlotte Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, contact Barrows.