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While I was pondering ‘What is a journalist?‘ the other day, the flip side is also worth considering.
With a camera in every pocket, people are recording faces, events, news, their dinner, sunsets and everything else at a dizzying pace. When I ask Google how many, I get an answer of 1 trillion — which I don’t know is accurate or not.
Suffice it to say, people point their phones at everything all day every day. And then, routinely, they post those photos and videos online for everybody to see.
This has led to the curious dichotomy of the internet era, when people seem to be willing to share everything about their lives while simultaneously obsessing over their privacy.
This has come up three times in recent days.
One is this video of an elderly gentleman waiting at the airport for his wife (presumably), which was posted on YouTube.
“Very romantic,” it says. Yes, but some people found it “creepy,” and there commenced a discussion of whether it’s appropriate to be recording people in public places.
A second example is a new policy at Harvard telling tourists to quit pointing their cameras through windows and taking pictures of students inside.
At first blush this smacks of voyeurism, yes? But are tourists truly trying to snap pics of scantily clad co-eds? Not most of them, I’d hope.
And the third incidence this week was an interview I gave on the use of drones in journalism.
We hear quite a bit of talk about the banning of drones from sporting events, from national parks, from flying over secure government areas. But is that really true? I don’t think so, because the FAA has yet to adopt regulations on drones.
Just because you say something is banned doesn’t make it true.
Each of these places — the airport, Harvard’s campus, a sporting event or national park — is a public place.
Although this has been a bone of contention for quite some time, because security people and police and quite a few uninformed busybodies will regularly try to argue otherwise, it’s well settled that you may photograph in a public place.
The real question is, ‘Should I publish it?’ That’s the decision journalists make every day.
And I think it helps clarify the broad gray line between journalist and not-a-journalist.
For the airport video, for example, a journalist would walk up to the couple, identify himself and talk to them. He would ask their names, where they’re from and what was the story behind the flower delivery.
That’s how you get the information which informs your decision whether to publish or not. Until then, you have no idea. Could be a great story. Could be eternally embarrassing to them. Could be both or neither.
Similarly, tourists walking around Harvard shouldn’t be pointing their cameras in windows. But making it a policy to disallow it? It’s unenforceable, for one thing.
For another, a news photographer should understand when people have a reasonable expectation of privacy — even in a public place.
Sitting inside a building, I generally would have a reasonable expectation I won’t be photographed from outside. Standing at a window making a goonie face at a tourist outside, I wouldn’t.
And the drones?
They’re cheaper than helicopters, taller than ladders. I don’t see anything particularly unusual about photos taken from drones. Haven’t government satellites and Google Earth already photographed every square inch of everything?
It’s more of a question of access and practicality, like how many TV vans can fit in the courthouse parking lot. It’s certainly possible to come up with compromises and accommodations.
Ultimately, again, it comes down to whether you choose to publish the photo or video. You should have a reason, other than simply ‘Because I can.’
Besides, if there are indeed a trillion pictures taken this year, we all hope some selectivity is in order.