Last month gardai visited the offices of Photocall Ireland with a summons for two of its staff to appear as witnesses in the prosecution of a protester. The agency had filmed a demonstration outside the Department of Justice, and gardai wanted to use their images as evidence. The photos were handed over only after the gardai had obtained a court order against Photocall. Witness summons were also issued for a photographer and the office manager who had downloaded the images onto a CD for the gardai, in order to show the chain of evidence.
Eamonn Farrell, an editor with Photocall, was upset at the gardai’s actions, seeing this as an attempt to “use journalists as an extension of their eyes and ears”. In an op-ed article, he wrote: “The attempt to force journalists to become agents of the state at protests and demonstrations is not only a threat to our independence and objectivity, but also to our safety and reputations.”
However, in a subsequent debate with Farrell on RTE Radio, a retired detective chief superintendent suggested he was “being a little bit precious”.
John O’Brien pointed out that gardai can seize photographs from the press only “if a specified offence has taken place” and not as part of a trawl for information. He also said “there is an obligation on the gardai to produce the best evidence” in criminal prosecutions. This means even if a garda has filmed a protest — as they usually do these days — his colleagues will still seek out other video footage and photographs in any subsequent investigation of criminal wrongdoing.
O’Brien really put it up to the media when he asserted that journalists “can’t be neutral in terms of a crime being committed”. This is the crux of the matter: if a journalist photographs someone being murdered, doesn’t he have a responsibility as a member of society to hand the evidence to police? If it had been a journalist, and not a mere “member of the public”, who had filmed those Chelsea fans pushing a black man off a Metro train in Paris, would he not feel an obligation to give the footage to the police so the self-proclaimed racists could be prosecuted? And for one final moral dilemma, how about if the gardai injured a protester in an unprovoked attack, and only a press photographer had the evidence. Would he allow his images to be used in a civil action for damages? There are neither easy nor right answers to such questions.
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Media organisations should always insist that the police obtain court orders before they hand over photos. They are also right to be fearful of being regarded as working for the police, since that is not our job and could put reporters working at protests in danger. Meanwhile, those journalists who make a point of handing over dossiers about bad guys to the gardai — in the hope of bumping up the importance of their scoops with a subsequent prosecution — should consider whether they are compromising their colleagues.