Journalists at protests

For the most part I think its insurrectionist posturing. It's easier to push around journalists than to fight cops. Although a piece with a similar argument and a different tone might make me feel differently.

Isn't it enough just to know and acknowledge that many people who take photos at demos turn them over to the cops?

Yeah, this is a bit of an obvious one, isn't it? As the student demos and riots over here have shown, the footage and shots the media have, handed over voluntarily or otherwise will come back to bite you in the arse.

flaneur talks sense.
So many times I've see hesitant anarchists ponder and say that journalists 'are on our side' or 'we've got to use the media', 'but they are in the NUJ' etc. A character from Alarm spouted this sort of waffle to me in March.

really? i've never seen anarchists say anything like that

From the article it seems they are having problems with the journalists. Not only the usual problems of bias and outing but they are making protests more dangerous at the scene.

Issuing information stating that journalists aren't welcome at protests will surely sort the chaff from the wheat. The ones who turn up despite being asked not to can safely be assumed to be people you don't want to be there? You can't really claim to be on someones side while disregarding their requests.

If properly publicised beforehand, and with banners/signs at the protest possibly with a url to an in depth explanation of the problems. When someone then sticks a camera in your face and gets knocked over, I'd say fair enough.

Obviously the journos make a living from pushing it and has to be where it happens to continue in employment. They are also at some level workers under pressure. That doesn't give them free pass to be assholes though. In liberal through journalists are holy, I don't see it that way. Clearly you can't really do worse PR than threatening journalists and otherwise being closed and opaque but what can else you do?

I think the article is right on. I mean, I don't agree that all journalists are inherently against us, they are workers and can be quite revolutionary.

But if some dick is taking photos AT A BLACK BLOC, and they have been asked to leave, then sure, beat 'em up, smash their cameras, whatever. Fuck em. We can't have those assholes outing people in the movement. ABC news published the mugshots of EVERYONE arrested on move-in day in Oakland, which was a clear attempt to out people to employers.

I have to take issue with this. It suggests revolutionists can manipulate capitalist mass media to their own ends. The media during the students demos were only inerested in trying to prove a causal link between the "violence", i.e property damage and the black block "anarchists" (with formal anarchist organisations being the point of contact because no journo could get hold of the black block!).

If only it was that simple. The student kids were doing roaming marches long before that. In fact it is one of the things that distingushed them (student demos) from the boring ritualised set-piece "anarchist" encounters with the pigs...it was a breath of fresh air.

Er of course we can occaisionally.I mean when you do a demo you often (but not always sice its a tactic) invite local press and/or send a short press release out.
If you did say a demo about a library, a war or sheltered hosuing or whatever, you'd be absolutely mental imho not to try and use the press to some degree. By the same token stuff like CARP for example should obviously be trying to get maximum exposure in the press.

In the UK, talking to the press or using the media is just a tactic, most people can or at least should be able to exercise common sense on when to use said tactic.