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.

Roy Greenslade’s article

Former Daily Mirror Editor turned academic Roy Greenslade wrote a column for the London Evening Standard yesterday entitled “Editors must curbs excesses of stalkerazzi” and a lot of it made a lot of sense:

• He agreed that the majority of press photographers do behave ethically all of the time
• He said that “we have to rely on editors to stick to the current code of practice, which prohibits photographic harassment. Given that it hasn’t worked thus far, perhaps we need to create a new clause to deal specifically with the blight of the stalking snappers”
• He concluded that “editors have to take responsibility for researching the provenance of the pictures they publish. They provide the market and they need to buy from accredited sources or, at least, make sure the photograph was obtained without needless intrusion and bad behaviour”
• He has introduced the term “stalkerazzi” into the debate

We aren’t looking to excuse the behaviour of those with cameras who behave badly. We are looking to bring a bit of balance to the Leveson Inquiry, to point out where we think the issues are and to bring hundreds of years of collective experience into the equation when a plan of action is made.

The trouble is that, despite being a Professor of Journalism, he has allowed himself to muddy the waters with personal anecdotes – one from Los Angeles where the stalkerazzi problem makes London look like a Gentlemens’ club and another from back when Princess Diana was the principal target for the paparazzi. The BPPA has spoken to photographers who ran with the ‘Diana Pack’ and none of them remember the abuse and provocation that the Professor mentions.

It’s a shame that his list of anecdotes didn’t include being a guest at a dinner held by The BPPA in 1990 where the association gave him a platform to launch the Ian Parry Scholarship – a fund in memory of a brave young press photographer who lost his life doing what press photographers do best; a fund that The BPPA still supports to this day and a charity whose name is written into the association’s constitution.

We don’t want to get into any more of a point by point discussion of Roy Greenslade’s article because that would be missing the point.

There is a problem, several celebrity and industry witnesses have given their point of view and it’s time that the inquiry heard from a profession that has been blamed for the actions of a tiny number of people, most of whom are not either British or professionals.

“You paparazzi scum!”

I’ve been a news photographer for nearly twenty years and during that time I’ve covered hundreds, if not thousands of stories that have appeared in tabloid newspapers and magazines around the world.

I’m British and have been living and working in Los Angeles, USA for the past four and a half years.

Like many news photographers out there my work consists of a healthy mix of celebrities. I recently covered Prince Harry’s time in the USA, plenty of showbiz like the Beckhams for example, the death of Michael Jackson and hard news including the earthquakes in Haiti and Japan.

My career came out of an equal passion for photography and news. When I quit the security of a steady job as an electronic sales engineer back in the early 1990′s and handed back the company car, tie and pension, I knew I was following the right path for me. It was more of a calling than a job.

It didn’t take for me long to realise which photographs would pay the highest bounty. A front page in the Times or Telegraph would pay maybe £500 if I was lucky, where-as a front page and a double page spread inside a red top tabloid or a glossy showbiz magazine would pay ten times that amount. It doesn’t take a business genius to realise which photos I should be chasing.

I quickly became a regular shifter at many of the national Daily and Sunday papers, including the Daily Mail, The News of the World and the Sun and in 2000 I set up an agency, First News, where I had a number of photographers working for me.

As a photographer or agency boss you have to  balance your output between work you are passionate about and work that pays the bills.

Jobs like catching James Boffey, a banned driver from Liverpool, getting back behind the wheel of his car after killing a cyclist, made the front page of the Daily Mail. It gave me great satisfaction actually nailing the scroat, but hardly paid a fortune. Or spending £2000 of my own money to investigate and photograph victims of people trafficking in Romania, a feature that never sold.

I’d worked on a number of stories in the USA and always felt I’d like to live there. In 2007 I got my visa and moved to Los Angeles where I  joined a celebrity news agency.

In early 2008 some news organizations focused their attention on me. Whilst working for the agency I took the decision to quit my job as I felt uneasy about the constant and reckless pursuit of the singer Britney Spears. At the time Spears appeared to be going through some kind of mental breakdown, shaving her head, driving on high speed late night runs through the Hollywood Hills, hotly pursued by the paparazzi. I felt it could end in the death of Spears.

There was no story, the paparazzi’s pursuit of Spears became the story. 

The competition for the latest set of photographs of Britney was very hot, with hundreds of thousands of dollars being paid for a great exclusive. The paparazzi  were ruthless. It wasn’t unknown for the paps to drive on the wrong side of the street and jump red lights. Stories of paps having their tyres slashed and cars attacked by the competition were not uncommon.

I stepped away from this madness.

I stepped away because like most news photographers out there whether working for a tabloid, or a broadsheet, like any sane person I looked at the actions of the paps and felt this clearly was not news photography. Someone was going to die.

Don’t get me wrong, I still cover celebrity news stories and photograph them on a regular basis, but there are ways of doing things. I don’t hound them with a short zoom lens twelve inches from their nose. I don’t chase them, jumping red lights and driving on the wrong side of the road, like a pack of hounds hunting a fox. The public have a huge appetite for celebrity news and photographs, this will never change, you only need to look at any newsstand to see that vast numbers of glossy magazines fighting for the hard earned cash of its readers. Not to mention the thousands of celebrity websites that are now financially trying to justify their existence.

I’ve watched with interest the Leveson Inquiry and the blanket condemnation of all tabloid news photographers. The news photographers have had no opportunity to reply to the allegations cast upon them.

Like many genuine news photographers out there I’ve been offended by many of the allegations levelled at us during the inquiry, often by people who fight for exposure within every column inch they can get.

In the world of news photography there are a small element who take unreasonable steps to obtain a sellable photograph. Sometimes attempting to incite a reaction in their subject, other times pursuing the subject relentlessly without a news agenda, just in hope getting a sellable frame and earn some money from that days snapping. There are of course a number of agencies that encourage this, their only concern is to get a photograph that sells.

A clear distinction must be made between this group and the large majority of news photographers. We do not spit on subjects, bang on their cars, approach their children, jump red lights, chase at high speed or manipulate photographs. We are there as impartial observers to observe and record in a dignified manner and in a manner that no reasonable celebrity or member of the public could have an issue with.

What is equally concerning is how the industry itself doesn’t differentiate between the good the bad and the ugly. How many times do we see TV images of the paparazzi, as they always call us, chasing a celebrity? Let’s not forget that the reason we are seeing those TV images is because the TV camera was plotted beside us and to see a broadsheet this week use a photograph of what is clearly a designated press pen and refer to the photographers inside it as paparazzi, it would appear we need to enlighten even our own picture desks as to what a paparazzi is.

The work of the ruthless paparazzi and the agencies that encourage their behaviour, in order to maximize their income must be condemned.  And the work of many hundreds of responsible news photographers must be recognized as work far removed from the small minority.

Nick Stern is a freelance news photographer, based in Los Angeles, USA and member of The British Press Photographer’s Association.

Current affairs…

A group of photographers that I am teaching have got exams next week and there is a good chance that they will get one question on “current affairs” in the world of photography. Drawing up a list of potential topics I suddenly realised that there have been a lot of issues that affect us over the last year or so and I wondered how many working photographers will be totally up to date on all of them.

That got me thinking again (it’s turning into a bad habit) and I started to realise that anyone who bothers to take part in or even lurk around the countless web and email based discussion forums will probably be OK but that anyone who just gets up, does their job, sends in the invoice and then gets on with their life probably won’t be OK. These days, you have to work very hard to keep up to date but for those of you who are interested, here is the list that I came up with:

• The Leveson Inquiry into the ethics, culture and practices of the press
• Privacy laws
• Photographers and the coverage of the recent riots
• How the media deals with the repatriation of the bodies of dead servicemen and women
• The Royal wedding(s)
• What is a paparazzi and how does the public perception of the affect how we work
• Real world health and safety for photographers at home and overseas
• Citizen journalism and how to deal with it positively
• The UK Press Card: its history and its place in the industry of today
• What the 2012 Olympics will mean for all of us
• Sports and entertainment licensing
• Section 43, clause 44 and the current moves towards collective licensing

Not a bad list and I’m sure that there are other current topics that we all need to know about to do our jobs properly. We all know that the laws around police/media relations, copyright and human rights are having huge effects on our daily working lives. Has there ever been a time in the history of news photography where so much has to be known about so many things by so few?

The Social Media Photo Conundrum

So, fellow professionals… answer me this… why should The BPPA be faced with a blank screen when visitors try to look at the photos on our Facebook page? 

The answer is, sadly, that there don’t seem to be any services out there who treat images with respect. If they aren’t stripping the metadata, they are selling your work. If they aren’t asking you to hand over your copyright they are making pictures far too easy to grab. Plus – once your work has been stolen/sold/borrowed we all know that getting it taken down or paid for requires a lot of effort and a not inconsiderable amount of resources.

Our work is very desirable if you are a penniless blogger or a corporate that ‘has no budget for pictures’ and a lot of our members work for agencies who have a ‘no pictures on social media’ policy. We want to show off our members’ work and we know that our pages, blogs and tweets would be far stronger with some of those superb pictures but do we want to take that risk? That is what you call a conundrum!

So what should we do? Should The BPPA remain in the mildly odd position of having to keep its Facebook page picture free or is there another way…

The BPPA AGM

On Friday 25th of November The BPPA held its Annual General Meeting. These events are often a little dull – being mainly concerned with approving accounts, electing a few people to a few jobs and then having a few drinks. This year’s AGM was very different. Sure, we agreed our accounts and yes we re-appointed our various officers but we also saw not one, not two but TEN new members appointed to the association’s Board.

Instead of a meeting that nobody wants to prolong because it gets in the way of socialising,  this years’s AGM was full of passion, debate and ideas.

Our constitution allows us to have as many or as few Board members as we wish but it is a strong signal that The BPPA is thriving when so many people hold their hands up and want to get involved. It also means that we have plenty of fresh talent wanting get involved – so many of whom are from what you could delicately call a younger generation of frontline press photographers than the existing Board.

Of course the main business of the evening came under “any other business” and it was to discuss the Leveson Inquiry and what we should do about it. Well, we have a plan – possibly more cunning than anything either Baldrick or Blackadder ever came up with – which has started to take shape with our request to take part in the Inquiry as either Core Participants and/or to give evidence.

Watch out for The BPPA on Twitter, Facebook as well as the blogs of individual members. Share, retweet, like and comment when you can.