The reason? He published some video footage of the G8 summit protests in San Francisco...the police wanted to see the entire footage to inveestigate an arson attack but Woolf refused stating that "AS A JOURNALIST, IT WOULD ENDANGER HIS SOURCES"
Woolf was held in contempt of court and sentenced to jail but it raised important issues...mainly the confusion of whether citizen journalists can access the legal protections given to journalist. It becomes a very very grey area and no-one seems to have a answer.
SOPHIE
1 comment:
Now i don't agree with the fact Mr. Woolf was locked up for that amount of time, or any amount of time for that matter.
But arguably he has misunderstood the concept of not revealing his sources. What sources would he have endangered? Surely he didn't meet anyone in secret in order to get the footage, he was just at the event. So I don't think his argument that he was protecting his sources is actually relevant to the situation in question.
ANYONE else could have filmed what was going on and I'm sure he wasn't the only one.
Perhaps this is just a case of a citizen journalist, as useful as they can be, trying to take it too far. He tried to play "real journalist" without a full understanding of what "endangering his sources" was supposed to be applied to and he ultimately paid the price.
Citizen Journalists need to know the rules of what they do, but its not our responsibility to teach them.
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