In a column posted over the weekend Joe Wojtas, the managing editor of The Day of New London describes a disturbing but unsurprising incident involving his attempt to photograph a news event and interference by the Connecticut State Police.
On the night of July 16, Wojtas was driving home when he saw what he believed to be the transfer of a beluga whale in progress at the Mystic Aquarium. As any reporter would, he pulled over and asked a local police officer where he could stand to photograph the transfer and went about doing his job. But then a spokesperson for the aquarium and the state police got involved.
From Wojtas’s column:
“An aquarium spokeswoman approached me. I asked her what she could tell me about the whale but she said the aquarium would not say anything until it sent out a press release at 8 the next morning. I told her we would soon be posting a story based on what we were seeing.
“…three state troopers began shining their flashlights in my eyes so I could not take a photo as the whale was being lifted out of its carrier to be wheeled into the aquarium. The troopers had escorted the whale from Bradley International Airport.
“When I yelled across to them to ask why they were doing this, one walked away but the other two continued to shine their flashlights at me. One yelled something and began to take a few steps toward me but stopped.
“Once the whale was placed on a carrier and could no longer be seen, they finally lowered their flashlights.”
What is unfortunately unsurprising about the incident is that it is part of a growing trend among professional media relations people, security personnel, and sometimes police officers to use their authority to attempt to keep journalists from doing their jobs.
Media relations professionals are supposed to help reporters tell stories. It is in the best interest of their clients to do so. Security personnel and police rarely have any legitimate role in running interference with the news media unless public safety is at issue. In the case Wojtas describes, there was no public safety interest in preventing him from taking pictures of a whale.
