Climate Camp’s Odd Rules for Photographers

Jonathan Warren reports from Blackheath’s Climate Camp:

As Climate Camp set up on Blackheath in south London yesterday I got hold of a copy of the code of conduct that journalists will be asked to sign if they want to stay on the camp outside of media hours (10am-6pm) and it makes for fascinating reading.

Most of it reinforces the camp’s existing media policy such as asking for everyone’s permission when taking a photograph. The code says ‘When you want to take a picture or a video and it includes people, always, always ask first. If you can’t ask don’t take the picture.’

The camp’s organisers claim that all decisions are made with consensus from everyone. But reading through the minutes of the national meetings before the camp, the code of conduct is only ever mentioned in passing. There is never a discussion about what it should be and what it should contain.

So what has resulted is the media team’s moral view on what the press should be allowed to do being imposed on everyone at the camp and on journalists. We do not allow the police to impose their moral view of what should be photographed on us, so why should journalists subscribe to the media team’s views?

Warren makes the salient point about this year’s camp being on public land, making it even more remarkable that the Climate Camp organisers should feel able to impose rules on anyone. I was up there last night and when on ‘their’ space always asked for permission to take people’s photograph – it’s a common courtesy after all. But ‘informing on camp activities’ – would the brief audioboo I submitted count? – is that as much a sign of paranoia as the highly unusual fencing they’ve encased themselves in?

(via Marc Vallee)