Another open letter to Professor Greenslade

An Open letter written by Chris Eades – a member of The BPPA’s Board in response to Professor Roy Greenslade’s inaccurate blog on The Media Guardian website:

Dear Mr Greenslade

I am writing on behalf of your photographic colleagues in the British Press Photographers’ Association to express our disappointment and frustration at your recent series of articles about “paparazzi” seeking to photograph Vicky Pryce while in prison.

I regret to say that the suppositions upon which you have based your article are for the most part untrue, with the result that your subsequent analysis and opinions are based on an ignorance of the facts.

When photographers sought to correct your mistakes and question your motivations in slurring your colleagues you responded not by seeking the truth, but by turning off comments on your blog to disable further criticism.

As someone who lectures in journalism, and presumes to lecture his peers on ethics, it is distressing that you have made no effort to substantiate the facts – but have chosen instead to rely on rumour, supposition and lazy stereotypes with the unfortunate result that you have thereby reinforced those stereotypes.

For your information we have laid out below the true events surrounding the taking of pictures of Pryce, and have sought to address the questions that you raise about the implication of these events.

In short – No laws were broken, the PCC code was adhered to and there is a strong case that a govt minister and his wife both being jailed for criminal offences is a valid news story, strengthened by the perception that Pryce is receiving preferential treatment by being transferred to open prison less than a week after being convicted.

You question the legitimacy of photographing convicted criminals in prison – but there is a long tradition of doing so. Myra Hindley, Jeffrey Archer, Sarah Tisdall, George Best, Rose West, Ernest Saunders, Maxine Carr, even Dr Crippen have all been photographed in prison.

If you think this is wrong then campaign to change the law, or the PCC code – but please don’t vilify your beleaguered photographic colleagues for legitimate news gathering.

We respectfully request a correction in full – with equal prominence to the original articles.

Yours

Chris Eades
On behalf of the BPPA Committee

THE TRUTH

The true events surrounding the pictures on Pryce at Sutton Park prison are as follows.

On sunday 17th The Sun ran a story that Pryce had been transferred to an open prison after less than a week in prison. This is unusually soon for a prisoner, even on a short sentence, to be moved – and raises the legitimate question is Pryce receiving preferential treatment?

Five newspapers dispatched staff / regular freelances to the prison to try to obtain pictures of Pryce in her new surroundings. All of the photographers were news photographers, not paps, on wages for the day and acting under instruction of their respective picture desks.

(For clarity I define news photographers as those who photograph individuals in the news, as opposed to paparazzi who concentrate on celebrities. These may overlap but it is a good general distinction).

There are several points where pictures could be taken at Sutton Park, without the need to trespass on private property. The easiest of these is from the grounds of the church which overlook the rear of the prison.

Security staff at the prison became aware of photographers presence fairly early on the sunday, and came over to ask who they were and what they were doing. They were asked to not enter the prison grounds and to be relatively open with their activity so as not to cause security concerns. No request was made for them to leave.

On the Monday they were joined by two more photographers from Fame/Flynet – who joined the existing crowd in the church yard and on a footpath that provides a view of the front drive.

Photographers also met a man wearing a dog collar, who they assume to be the vicar. He passed the time of day with them but again did not at any time express concerns at their presence or request that they leave.

The photographers were openly present in the church grounds, in full view, and with the knowledge of both prison and church authorities.

On Wednesday 20th photographers spotted Pryce being escorted to an outbuilding which they took to be a library or education centre, roughly a hundred yards from the church yard – and took pictures which subsequently appeared online and in the next days Sun, Mirror, Mail and Telegraph. All photographers present got images. Flynet were fortunate to get the best angle, and subsequently the majority of the publications.

These pictures were taken openly from from the churchyard, with the knowledge of church and prison authorities – neither newspaper or agency photographer used subterfuge or trespassed on prison property. Very long lenses were not used, the distance being relatively short.

After the first of these picture appeared online the PCC forwarded a letter from Pryces family asking that photographers withdraw. The photographers had infact already pulled back, having got their picture. To the best of my knowledge none has returned to the prison since.

I know this account to be true – as I was there. I understand that Jim Bennett has also explained much of this to you in person.

ADDRESSING THE CRITICISM

In your first article you publish a series of untruths and make a number of suppositions as well as posing a number of questions.

You state that prison officers “prison officers asked the paparazzi to go away and allow the woman to serve her eight-month sentence for perverting the course of justice in peace” – This is factually untrue, no such request was made at any stage, either by prison officers or by the prison officers press liaison officer who came over for a chat.

You state that – “There is, of course, no proof that any newspaper commissioned the photographers. It is highly likely that the snappers turned up on their own initiative.” This supposition is untrue, at the point when this article was written the ONLY photographers in attendance were in fact working directly for papers.

You also pose the questions:
Is it in the public interest to take pictures of a person in jail?
Is it against the editors’ code of practice?
Is there a law against it?

Photographers working for papers do not as a rule get asked for their views on ethics, these being generally reserved for greater minds in nice warm offices. We tend instead to deal with the practical application of the rules on the ground.

But in answer to your first question “Is it in the public interest to take pictures of a person in jail?” the consensus between those on the ground was that it was questionable whether Pryce was receiving preferential treatment – and as such was a valid news story. The majority of editors with access to the pictures agreed.

In answer to your second question “Is it against the editors’ code of practice?”
You yourself admit that you are unclear as to which part of the code this would breach. The PCC advisory draws newspapers attention to section 4 harassment which states “ii) They must not persist in questioning, telephoning, pursuing or photographing individuals once asked to desist.”
As I have explained nobody at any stage asked photographers to desist or leave – until the advisory was issued by the PCC, by which time the photographers had already got their pictures and departed.
SO in answer to your question – In our opinion the PCC code was studiously observed.

As to your third question “Is there a law against it?”
No there isn’t

So to sum up the pictures are arguably in the public interest, do not breach the PCC and are not against the law. You have every right to debate this view – but you should make clear that these decisions are made by our bosses, rather that choosing to stereotype and vilify your news gathering colleagues.

When your original article was published a number of photographers commented on your blog that you had the facts wrong which you chose to ignore – choosing instead to repeat your allegations a day or so later, but this time disabling comments to prevent anyone challenging your inaccurate and biassed account.

Furthermore, while we are debating journalism ethics, may I take the opportunity to deplore your decision to publish an unattributed and cowardly attack from an “anonymous” press photographer. An attack full of inaccuracies, from someone who wasn’t even there.
(we all know an anonymous source usually means “my mate in the office” or “I made up these quotes”).

How can you justify publishing a cowardly attack without verification while censoring responses from photographers who were there?

The Copyright Fight

As the song goes ‘There may be trouble ahead’…except this time there is no ‘maybe’ about it. For those that recall the less-than-wonderful “Clause 43” of Labour’s “Digital Economy Bill” which proposed to legalise the use of Orphan Works and Extended Collective Licensing – well, despite its defeat it’s back and this time it’s personal.

Hidden away in a completely unrelated Bill – namely the ERRB (the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill) – are pretty much the same clauses that got thrown out before. The IPO (Intellectual Property Office) – a bunch of Patent-based Civil Servants in the fashion of Sir Humphrey from “Yes Minister” – were so miffed at their attempt to undermine photographer’s copyright being defeated that they’ve snuck their insidious plans back into Parliament hidden in a bill that has absolutely nothing to do with copyright.

There are many reasons why every photographer should be up in arms about this and we’ll list them below summarized by people who know far more about this than myself. The really, really important thing is that we still have the opportunity to send Sir Humphrey back to his Gentleman’s club in Pall Mall with a flea in his ear. They think it’s all over but it bloody well isn’t.

We still have time to effect change to the bill and even get the clauses thrown out (they shouldn’t be there anyway) but we have to act fast. We have to lobby the Lords and then we need to start a firestorm on our MP’s.

Interestingly we have some strange bedfellows as allies on this one including The Associated Press, Getty Images, Reuters, British Pathe, The Press Association, and the Federation of Commercial and Audiovisual Libraries, who have formed the International Media & Archive Consortium. They are threatening a judicial review should the bill become law, but it would be in everyone’s interest if it didn’t get that far.

This affects everyone who works in this country with a camera in their hands.

You all have to take the time to read what it means for you. Even if you just read the summary we’ve provided you’ll garner enough information to include in a letter to your MP or one of the Lords listed.

But it really is in our/your hands to do something for the good of all photographers working in the United Kingdom whether they know it or not.

Eddie Mulholland.

The proposals hidden in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill would do very serious damage to the livelihoods of UK photographers if adopted. We believe that the clauses should be removed rather than amended because:

1. They should be subject to full parliamentary debate, not buried in someone else’s bill and secondary legislation.
2. They rob photographers of their rights.
3. They would not create economic growth, they would damage it.
4. They break international law.
5. They would be subject to judicial review even as they are passing through the Commons.
6. They allow no room for the new “Copyright Hub” concept which, given time to get working, would deal with most of the problems.
7. They are no substitute for a dedicated and properly considered Copyright Bill – this is nothing more than a rights-damaging fudge proposed by the Intellectual Property Office.

At some point the IPO should learn to realize that the intellectual property that they are supposed to look after is not only that of big business, inventors but that of hundreds of thousands of small businesses and sole traders whose combined worth to the UK’s economy is substantial.

See a fuller explanation on The BPPA’s website

Follow Stop 43 - the campaigning group who did most to stop the orphan works clauses in the Digital Economy Act

An Open Letter to Sir George Young MP

Dear Sir George

One of the easiest ways for a backbench Member of Parliament to get noticed and to acquire a platform is to jump onto passing populist bandwagons. Over the years we have seen it many times but Nadine Dorries MP has just joined a very select club; those whose chasing of popularity and notoriety has become something more than a means to an end.

Nobody can possibly think that the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha was anything other than an absolute tragedy. Nobody apart, it seems, from Nadine Dorries. Not content with expressing normal human emotions and offering her sincere condolences to Ms Saldanha’s family and friends the MP for Mid Bedfordshire has done her best to try to blame members of the media in the United Kingdom for the tragedy. Writing on Twitter the former “I’m a Celebrity” contestant suggested that “paps” had driven the nurse to take her own life. This would seem like an attempt to attach the death to one of her own hobby-horses and put some pressure onto her Parliamentary colleagues to force greater restrictions on the press during the Leveson process.

Whether or not the Conservative Whip is returned to Mrs Dorries on a permanent basis, her actions on Twitter go way beyond Parliamentary Privilege and cross the line into ignorant defamation dressed up as human reaction.

The Board of The British Press Photographers’ Association would ask you to take Nadine Dorries MP’s activities on Twitter into account when you review her status as a Conservative MP and to remind her that her tweets could have consequences every bit as damaging as those of the two Australian disc jockeys whose unthinking actions led to Ms Saldanha’s death.

Yours Sincerely

The Board of The British Press Photographers’ Association

More British than the British.

Posted on March 30, 2012 by eddiemulh

In 1982 Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. My father had worked there in the 1950′s, so we were one of the few families in the United Kingdom that knew that somewhere north of Scotland had not been annexed by Spanish speaking invaders.

I went to Argentina and then to the Falkland Islands in 2007 as part of the Daily Telegraph’s coverage of the 25th anniversary of the Falklands War. I met conscripts from desert areas of Argentina who had never even seen the sea. They had been told that the population of the Falkland Islands was Spanish and would greet them as liberators.

I met Falkland Islanders who risked their lives and would do again to stay British. My general opinion was that despite the potential oil riches and the already obvious riches from fishing which have sustained the economy, it wasn’t really about cash. The Falklands’ are a dreadfully harsh place. The people are hardy. No, the people are hard, they are tough. Imagine the roughest, toughest Yorkshireman bred with the hardest Hebridean, crossed with an Eastend hardman. You could describe them as many things, but the one term you would come back to is ‘British’. More British than the British.

Here are some of the photographs I took during my visit.

A permanent military guard at the War Memorial to all those from Argentina who died during the Falklands War, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Commandante Hector Bonzo, Captain of the Argentinian naval cruiser ‘General Belgrano’
which was destroyed during the Falklands War. Commandante Bonzo was photographed at the ‘Association Of Friends Of The Belgrano’ in Buenos Aires where a board listing all those who died is kept.

Former General Mario Benjamin Menendez at his home in Buenos Aires. He lead the Argentinian forces on the Falkland Islands during the invasion.

Maria Fernanda Araujo whose brother Elbio, a conscript, died during the Falklands War.

Maria Fernanda Araujo visiting the Memorial To The Falklands War in Pilar, Argentina. The memorial consists of a replica of the Argentinian war cemetery on the Falkland Islands.

Maria Fernanda Araujo at the Memorial To The Falklands War in Pilar visiting a Replica of St Mary’s Church Port Stanley.

Crosses at the Memorial To The Falklands War, Pilar, Argentina.

Whilst on the Falkland Islands, Argentinian war veterans paid homage to their fallen comrades.

The Argentinian War Cemetery, Darwin, Falkland Islands, on the 25th anniversary of the invasion and the start of the Conflict , visited by five Argentinian war veterans. One of the veterans, Ramon Robles wore a jacket which said “We fought with honour and we will return….”

These crosses are not the only markers for the fallen. Every major battle that cost the lives of British soldiers is marked with a memorial.

A steel cross marks Wireless Ridge were the final battle took place in the Falklands War. Following the victory of 2 Para on the ridge which overlooks Port Stanley, the Argentinan Army surrendered.

Wireless Ridge. The memorial remembers Colour Sergeant Gordon Findlay and Private Francis Slough and Private David Parr who died there during the battle.

Near to Goose Green, a cross and a headstone mark the grave of Lieutenant Nicholas Taylor, 800 Naval Air Squadron, HMS Hermes, Fleet Air Arm, Royal Navy, the first member of the British Armed Forces to die in combat during the conflict on May 4th 1982.
He was buried by the Argentinan Army with full military honours , a ceremony which was broadcast on Argentinan television.

The memorial to 3 Para, Mount Longdon where twenty-three British soldiers lost their lives on June 11th and 12th 1982.

One of many scattered Memorials relating to members of 3 Para, Mount Longdon.

Shrapnel and casings on Mount Longdon.

The memorial to 2 Para, positioned between Darwin and Goose Green on Darwin Hill.

The memories are kept fresh with a memorial in Port Stanley too.

2007-Current and veteran Falkland Island Defence Force members marching in Stanley today 25 years after they were called out to defend against The Invading the Argentine Army.

A service held at the War Memorial in Port Stanley.

Many of the Falkland Islanders who lived through the invasion and liberation are still happily living there.

Trudi McPhee at Brookfield Farm, where she lived with her family during the Argentinan Occupation in 1982. Trudi received a commendation from the British Army for her work moving troops around during the conflict.

Falkland Islander Tony Smith, who conducts battlefield tours, with the remains of an Argentinan Puma Helicopter between Mount Kent and Two Sisters Mountain.

Patrick Watts, who was broadcasting from the radio station in Port Stanley as the Argentinan troops invaded and who is now involved in the tourism industry, conducting battlefield tours, pictured here on Wireless Ridge with a 105 mm Gun from the war.

Mike Butcher with the skull of a Killer Whale at his house in Stanley, where he was during the Argentinan occupation in 1982. He wandered around during the occupation dropping tacks and nails to puncture tyres on Argentinian vehicles.

Tourism is one of the industries on the rise in the Falkland Islands. Port Stanley itself, alongside the penguins that live nearby, draw in crowds from visiting cruise liners.

Gentoo Penguin Colony , Bluff Cove Lagoon.

Upland Geese in flight, a characteristic of the Falkland Islands landscape.

The famous Totem Pole , at Government Megabid, Airport Road , Port Stanley.

The Lady Elizabeth, a ship which was holed in the late 1800′s and now lies beached on a sandbank in Port Stanley.

The mountains in the background were the scenes of famous battles during the Falklands War and running from left to right are : Sappers Hill, Mount William, Mount Harriet, Mount Tumbledown, Two Sisters Mountain, Mount Kent and Mount Longdon rising behind Wireless Ridge.

Stone runs, a characteristic part of the landscape.

A rainbow near Fitzroy River in ‘The Camp’ which is the Falkland Islanders name for the countryside between settlements.

Typical ‘Wriggly Tin’ roof in Stanley.

Ross Road, Port Stanley.

The Globe Tavern near the Jetty Visitors centre, Port Stanley.

View of Port Stanley from between Wireless Ridge and Mount Longdon.

Thatcher Drive, Port Stanley.

And right at the other end of the Island there is a little settlement called Goose Green.

School playground Goose Green Settlement, recaptured by 2 Para after a battle lasting more than 12 hours on May 28 1982.

A legacy of the 1982 conflict , many areas of The Falkland Islands are designated Out of Bounds due to Argentinian Mine-fields.

I think my most enduring memory of my visit was the memorials at the battlegrounds. Looking at the ages of some of the soldiers that died, Argentinian and British and meeting the Islanders and wondering if it was worth it .

Look closely at the ages on this memorial to 3 Para, Mount Longdon where twenty-three British soldiers lost their lives on June 11th/12th 1982.

Rest In Peace.

NO painting with LIGHTY…? NO LIKEY!

I have just returned from another wonderful weekend in Dublin, as guest of the Press Photographers Association of Ireland (PPAI) and Allied Irish Bank (AIB) for the AIB Photojournalism Awards 2012. The ceremony was on Friday night, but two days in the fantastic bars and restaurants takes it’s toll so I’m a bit late with this report!

Have a look at the list of winners, they are spectacular, a brilliant spread of photographs that myself and fellow judges Peter Macdiarmid and Dermot O’Shea felt were the best of the best. That of course is where the rub is, judging is a dangerous thing to do. I’ve done it before and I’m more than aware of the pitfalls. This time was no exception.

Judging is a subjective art. One man’s Page One is another man’s Page Eleven. It happens to me as a photographer every day, as I’m sure it does with all photographers, not just in Ireland and the United Kingdom, but all around the world. All one can do as a judge, is offer an opinion. Obviously, there are certain photographs that everyone sees as ‘no brainers’ . Photographs that everyone says are without a shadow of doubt, ‘THE’ picture of the day. In my experience this is not the case. Opinions vary and that is the only fact about competitions. The whole process makes you feel a bit more sympathetic towards picture editors in general.

Without going into specifics there were certain pictures that lost out to others because they did not quite fulfill the definition of that particular category….pictures that I and the other judges actually preferred. But if a category’s name asks for a specific discipline and the ‘best’ picture does not define that discipline, then how can you (no matter how much you love it….) fairly award the prize to that picture? Rules are rules and they are specific to category definitions. I stand by my choices.

On arrival we were jokingly asked “if we’d brought flak jackets…?” and “had we noticed the targets that had magically appeared on our backs….?” Even where we were seated in a room of about three hundred black-tied guests, was explained to us as ‘arranged’ so we could see where the missiles were coming from! Needless to say this was all good-hearted ribbing, well, that’s what I’m sticking to…..

The real spectacle of the evening was how the PPAI unveiled the overall winner. At the start of the evening, the stage was covered in empty bar-stools. By the end, each stool was sat on by a winner. Each winner was blindfolded. It looked like a group version of ‘Take Me Out’! However, the winners were not asked questions about how they would rock the questioner’s boat, instead they had to sit there while the overall winner’s portfolio was screened behind them. There were a few screams from the audience, but watching closely as I did, nobody seemed to be able to guess who the winner was!? Eventually, Julien Behal of The Press Association of Ireland was announced as Photojournalist Of The Year. Well done Julien, it was a great set!

The real work starts now for The PPAI. The sponsors AIB are starting a nationwide tour from this Monday of the winning photographs all around Ireland to as many of their branches as possible. It’s a fantastic way of bringing the work that members do back to the grassroots. Letting people all over Ireland realise what the job is about. As I’ve said before, I believe this is why press photography is so well thought of in the Republic Of Ireland. It was a great experience judging and being a guest at the Awards. Sorry to those we didn’t pick.

On a personal note, I wish we could have an awards ceremony as well respected in the United Kingdom. I’d even be happy for Paddy McGuinness to MC the whole event! And obviously, I would supply the blindfolds…..!

The BPPA and The Leveson Inquiry in 34 minutes.

Three submissions, a lot of reading and an awful lot of discussion came down to a 34 minute appearance at The Leveson Inquiry today (Tuesday 7^th February) afternoon. Was it worth it? Right here, right now the answer has to be a truly resounding ‘YES’. Our case has been outlined before; we wanted to impress on the world that there can be a huge difference between a professional press photographer and a bloke with a posh camera.

We wanted to make Lord Justice Leveson and his Inquiry aware that we are willing and able to be to be part of the process of finding solutions to the issues highlighted in the early evidence at the hearings. Most of all we wanted to highlight the four-pronged plan that we have developed to help ensure that photographs published in the UK news media have been checked thoroughly so that they comply with every law and ethical code that applies to that media in that situation.

Sitting there in the same chair that Paul Dacre, Editor in chief of the Daily Mail had occupied for the best part of four hours yesterday and that the familiar cast list of celebrities had sat in right back at the start of the formal hearings in November was more than a little nerve-wracking. Not so much on a personal level – but representing hundreds of honest, hard working and highly professional colleagues. If that wasn’t bad enough, the editors of The Times and The Sun were up after us!

We really cannot talk about today in terms of winning and losing but it seems that we have made our point and we know that Lord Justice Leveson himself said that

“Mr Turner, thank you very much indeed. Responsible photographers, like responsible journalists, are not part of the problem and they do need to be part of the solution. Thank you very much.”

If, after today, the industry takes us more seriously and if, after today, we are allowed a voice on issues that directly affect the lives, careers and reputations of professional press photographers then maybe, just maybe we can think in terms of a (small) victory.

Of course the 34 minute white knuckle ride was made a lot easier by the quality of our argument and the sentiments in our submissions.

The BPPA’s Board worked hard on this and there are a lot of people to say ‘thank you’ to. So to everyone who contributed, everyone who tweeted and re-tweeted about our submissions and liked our Facebook page. Thank you. It turns out that it was a pleasure to be your representative!

Links to the content of our appearance: TRANSCRIPT VIDEO

The BPPA gets its say at The Leveson Inquiry

Here’s a date for your diary: Tuesday the 7^th of February. “Why?” I hear you ask, well it is the day when The BPPA will finally get to appear before the Leveson Inquiry into the culture, practice & ethics of the press.

In our main submission to Lord Justice Leveson’s Inquiry we proposed a four-pronged solution to the issues raised in connection to photography at the hearings to date:

• Make the publishers of websites, blogs, magazines and newspapers and their editors financially and professionally responsible for any lack of due diligence in checking how, where and why pictures that they are publishing were taken. Photographs acquired from citizen journalists, CCTV systems and inexperienced photographers should have a clear and strict series of tests applied before publication to verify their provenance
• Images purchased from holders of UK Press Cards or from reputable agencies that are members of a United Kingdom Press Card Authority member body would require a lower standard of checking and proof because the photographer holding the press card would, according to the new ethical code, already have performed tests as they were shot. Should the images turn out to have been acquired irresponsibly, that would constitute a breach of the code of ethics that they sign up to when receiving their new UK Press Card
• Strengthening of the UK Press Card scheme with an enforceable code of conduct including the suspensions and cancellations of cards. This obviously will not stop the cowboys who don’t have genuine press cards but it will provide a framework within which to work
• Agree a simple outline about exactly which laws apply to photographers when they are going about their legitimate business: trespass, assault, intimidation, harassment and so on. It would also be advisable to clarify where and when the various elements of the Human Rights Act and the UN Convention on the Rights of The Child become applicable without allowing rich and powerful vested interests to slip a de-facto privacy law in by the back door

We started the ball rolling back in November when the association’s AGM took place and we started to discuss what we could do about the beating that press photographers were taking during the first couple of weeks worth of evidence at The Inquiry. Like most people, we had thought that the early stages of Lord Justice Leveson’s hearings would be about phone hacking but time-after-time the actions of photographers seemed to get more coverage than those of private detectives and over-zealous reporters.

Within days we had made our first submission in the form of an open letter to The Inquiry where we outlined our objections and sought to be awarded “core participant” status for the proceedings. The legal team behind the Leveson hearings took a couple of weeks to get back to us to let us know that we would not be offered that status they invited us to make a second and much more detailed submission by the beginning of January. We put the 18 page document in on time and following a few emails back and forth asking for clarification of one of our points we finally learned this week that it is all systems go for Tuesday, the 7^th of February.

The BPPA wants to be there at the table when solutions are discussed and when decisions are made. The BPPA wants the voices of press photographers to be heard. Most importantly, The BPPA wants to make sure that the profession comes out of this process with its reputation enhanced, with its future as secure as it can be and with improved media and public perceptions of who we are and what we do.

These are simultaneously worrying and exciting times for press photographers. As a profession we have worked hard to create some momentum towards those goals and it is our aim to keep that momentum going on February 7^th.

Visit The BPPA’s website.

“We are the eyes of the public…”

I’ve been to a mystical land! It’s a land where press photographers are loved and feted. They are considered professionals whose role is vital to the nation. They are not abused on the streets and the Head Of State, the President,  joins them for dinner when they have their annual awards ceremony, the winner of which is whisked away in a limo’ for a live prime time television interview. They are interviewed again for breakfast television and their winning photograph is plastered all over the national newspapers. One previous winner told me how he and a colleague were given a civic reception in their home town the year they won. To get there you just head north, turn left at Birmingham and keep on going.  You’ll probably need a boat or a plane, but it’s not as far as you think.

If you think I’m talking about the U.S.A then you are wrong! This land of dreams, where our profession is so loved is in fact the Republic Of  Ireland.

I’ve just returned from Dublin, after three days of judging the Press Photographer’s Association of Ireland ‘AIB Photojournalism Awards 2012′, along with my colleague photographer Peter Macdiarmid from Getty Images and legendary former picture editor of The Irish Times, Dermot O’Shea. We spent a fantastic weekend going through the cream of Irish press photography. The decisions were hard to make, but we were happy to spend the hours in a darkened room because the photography was just amazing. The results are almost a state secret, only to be revealed in February at the gala black tie dinner attended by non other than the Irish President Michael Higgins himself! Peter and myself were treated like visiting dignitaries and taken to the best restaurants and bars in Dublin, where the reception was never anything other than fiercely friendly. We are both looking forward to returning for the main event.

The thing that struck us both during the visit and which spurred me on to writing this, my first ever blog post, was how different the atmosphere was around the subject of press photography in Ireland. It really is respected, all the things I mentioned at the start of this post are true. On the final day of judging we were visited in the hotel, where the judging was taking place, by six photographers from the Irish national press for a photocall and on the following day the readers were put off their breakfast by our (mine and Pete’s) ugly mugs staring back at them. These national papers will also run massive spreads after the winners have been announced. The winner, as I said earlier, is taken to be interviewed on ‘The Late Late Show’, Ireland’s highest rated and most prestigious television show on RTE. This is fantastic support and publicity for the world of photojournalism and it is quite obviously paying dividends evident in the Irish public’s attitude to our job. The sponsor, Allied Irish Bank (AIB) must take a great deal of the credit too. They tour the exhibition to their branches around the country bringing this high quality work to the grassroots. Small communities getting the chance to see the work of the country’s finest. AIB also marry the tour to local festivals, so the photography becomes part of community events. It’s a simple idea but brilliantly effective because it makes people feel part of our job. It’s there for them to see in their high street.

Bearing all this in mind makes you wonder. Could we TheBPPA do the same !? Maybe we would need a fairy godmother sponsor? The work involved in touring any exhibition is daunting and probably beyond a volunteer lead organisation at the moment, but the publicity in other areas of the media must be achievable. We’ve got friends in television, why can’t we get them onside!? We all mostly work for newspapers and magazines, why can’t we get them to do spreads of member’s work when we have a completed project? I used to do ‘vox pops’ with Boris Johnson, surely City Hall is a prime exhibition space?We need ideas and we need everyone to get behind the cause…….

Whatever we do we’d better do it fast! The Leveson Inquiry set up following the phone hacking scandal, was very quick to turn it’s guns on press photographers. It’s easy to see why….we are ‘low hanging fruit’. The visible face of journalism. We stand on the street, we don’t hide in an office. We come face to face with the public and from experience I can tell you they are not big fans. We need to win them over. We need them to understand that we are there to serve them. We are there to show them what’s going on.

Andrew Wiard, a fellow TheBPPA board member and respected photojournalist, coined this brilliant phrase at a recent meeting when he said, “We are the eyes of the public..”

All we have to do now is work to get them to see it!

The BPPA’s second submission to the Leveson Inquiry

When the Leveson Inquiry first opened we had little or no idea that press photographers would come in for so much criticism and abuse from the witnesses. At the association’s AGM in November we formed a plan to do what we could to counter this and put our side of the story. Shortly afterwards we sent an initial submission in the form of an open letter to Lord Justice Leveson and his team to see if we could be added as a “core participant’ at The Inquiry.

We were refused that status on the grounds that we were, apparently, both adequately represented and because press photography wasn’t a specific topic for the inquiry. We had expected to be refused and so the job of drafting the second, longer, submission began. The BPPA’s Board approved it at the end of last week and it was submitted ahead of the resumption of The Inquiry on Monday 9th January. The full document is 18 pages long and almost impossible to summarise in a blog posting so here are some key parts of the INTRODUCTION, our four-part STRATEGY and the CONCLUSION in full:

OUTLINE

The association is in a position to make a unique and positive contribution to the debate by providing a more accurate, up-to-date and informed assessment than any other organisation on the specific topics where we have expertise. In this written submission The BPPA will offer The Inquiry our views on:

• The culture and practices of professional press photographers
• The market place for news pictures and how it affects those cultures and practices
• The problems that the market for celebrity images are causing
• Privacy laws vs public interest

As well as our proposals for

• Cooperation between all parts of the media to establish clear and enforceable ethical guidelines and codes of behaviour and etiquette
• The reduction and elimination of the problems of unethical photographers, the so-called ‘stalkerazzi’

STRATEGY

The current international and multi-platform market is, however, no place for voluntary codes to function in isolation. The BPPA’s Board is of the opinion that we need a four-pronged strategy:

• Make the publishers of websites, blogs, magazines and newspapers and their editors financially and professionally responsible for any lack of due diligence in checking how, where and why pictures that they are publishing were taken. Photographs acquired from citizen journalists, CCTV systems and inexperienced photographers should have a clear and strict series of tests applied before publication to verify their provenance
• Images purchased from holders of UK Press Cards or from reputable agencies that are members of a United Kingdom Press Card Authority member body would require a lower standard of checking and proof because the photographer holding the press card would, according to the new ethical code, already have performed tests as they were shot. Should the images turn out to have been acquired irresponsibly, that would constitute a breach of the code of ethics that they sign up to when receiving their new UK Press Card
• Strengthening of the UK Press Card scheme with an enforceable code of conduct including the suspensions and cancellations of cards. This obviously will not stop the cowboys who don’t have genuine press cards but it will provide a framework within which to work
• Agree a simple outline about exactly which laws apply to photographers when they are going about their legitimate business: trespass, assault, intimidation, harassment and so on. It would also be advisable to clarify where and when the various elements of the Human Rights Act and the UN Convention on the Rights of The Child become applicable without allowing rich and powerful vested interests to slip a de-facto privacy law in by the back door

CONCLUSION

The British Press Photographers’ Association is very keen to be a partner to The Inquiry when solutions are discussed and when recommendations are made. We believe that it is in the long-term interests of our profession to contribute to the discussion and to help to shape the future of the industry. The association has an excellent track record in negotiating, agreeing and publicising codes of conduct. The BPPA and other photographer groups got together with the Metropolitan Police and then with the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) to agree the guidelines by which we work alongside each other. These guidelines have been in place for several years and have been very successful.

We would recommend the four-pronged strategy outline previously because we believe that adopting it would provide the following outcomes:

• To provide assurances to the general public that professional journalists exist and that our work is ethical, legal and trustworthy
• To create clear and unambiguous rules for the conduct of media workers
• To establish systems within all publications, whether they are print, on-line or broadcast to check where and how material was sourced
• To use the market place and existing legislation to control the so-called ‘stalkerazzi’

Anyone with the money can buy a camera and call themselves photographers and, as things stand, all of us have to contend with the actions of the relatively small number of unethical operators out there on a daily basis. Several times in this submission we have referred to press photographers as the very visible face of the media and all of our colleagues can relate stories of being shouted at, abused and even assaulted because of a general perception that all news photographers stalk celebrities for a living. This is just not true and The BPPA wishes to make that clear.

There are a large number of genuine and well-behaved entertainment and celebrity specialists who never cross the line, break the law or act outside any new rules that we might develop whose careers could be greatly assisted if we get this process right.

The introduction of a French style privacy law would be the archetypal ‘sledgehammer to crack a walnut’ combined with a textbook case of ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater’. We support the clarification of existing laws and the establishment of a meaningful, clear, enforceable and unambiguous ethical framework as the correct path along which to proceed.

WHAT TO DO NEXT…

We achieved significant impact with our social media campaign when we published our initial submission and we need to at least match that effort with this document IF we are going to achieve our next objective, which is to get a seat at the table if and when The Inquiry starts to make reccomendations about the future and press photography.

• Please follow us on Twitter and retweet anything we put out about the leveson Inquiry
• Go to our Facebook page and “like” it
• Follow The BPPA’s blog using whatever method you want and share the content with colleagues, friends and family and even your Member of Parliament
• Download and read the full 18 page document

Education, education, education…

Back in 1997 Tony Blair made his famous “education, education,education” speech. Well… he made at least three speeches where he used that line but that doesn’t stop it being an important landmark in British political history. Don’t worry, The BPPA isn’t going to get all party-political on you but we are very interested in education and we are currently looking into what we can do to promote press photography through education.

The first idea is to start very close to home and see if there is any way we can get some proper investment into continuing professional development (CPD) for working professionals. In these tight times, could there be something that our government could do to help with the costs of training and uprating our skills? How about a decent tax break for training? What if, instead of deducting the cost of training off of your marginal rate of taxation, you could deduct 50% or even 100% of the costs from your tax bill up to £2,000 in any given tax year? At the moment a £500 training session would still cost you £500 before you submit your tax return and then you would effectively get between £100 and £200 back off of your tax bill depending on whether you pay the Inland Revenue (above the basic amounts) at 20% or 40%. Wouldn’t it be a good idea if you could have the first £2,000 of training at 50%, 60% or even 100%?

At a point in the economic cycle where experts, pundits and commentators are all saying that the economy needs some proper stimulus measures, wouldn’t investing in CPD and training be a very good start? Professional organisations need to put this to MPs and our MPs need to put this to Ministers.

The second part of the association’s look towards education is a small pilot scheme for mentoring new photographers and students on industry specific courses using a Facebook Group where willing mentors – professionals with loads of relevant experience – can give some to give advice, criticism and answer questions from menthes. It’s in its very early stages but the willingness of some amazing photographers to take part shows just how much the profession wants to help channel the energies of new photographers in the right direction.

The third area we are looking at has come in response to an enquiry from a small company who want to encourage UK schools to get involved in publishing their own newspapers and to do it properly. The BPPA has offered some help and in return we want to get lots of messages out to schools, their teachers and their pupils:

• Copyright – every creative work has a copyright owner and students producing even the smallest newspapers need to be careful using other people’s work
• Ethics – based on the PCC Editor’s Code and various other codes of practice students should realise that journalistic ethics is NOT an oxymoron
• Economics – producing newspapers costs money and the older age groups involved in the project need to know just how much

The project hasn’t got enough funding yet and we have offered our support if they get it going and are prepared to emphasise these key points. In the USA almost every high school has a newspaper and the dream is that we can achieve that here too. It is no coincidence that Americans have a greater respect for the media than we do and maybe that could in some part be due to many more citizens having been involved in publishing early on in their education.

Whether or not you believe that Tony Blair and David Blunkett achieved anything with their big election issue of the ’97 election, there can be few people who don’t think that education in its widest sense is a good thing. It doesn’t matter whether you are at primary school or whether you have been in the industry for 25 years or more we could all benefit from knowing more about the press.