A chilling incident
Last week, a Providence Journal photographer, suspecting that her assignment would be routine, covering an ethnic festival in Providence, found herself confronting a suspected gunman. The photographs she took would run on the front page with a sequence inside. The incident that followed would send chills through any journalist and any advocate of the press’s ability to operate freely without the intimidation usually associated with a police state. Providence police confiscated her cameras and film as she prepared to enter the Journal building, then took her to the station, where cooler heads prevailed and she was released, film intact. The police later received a copy of the photograph from the Journal.
Journal columnist Bob Kerr, in a column last Wednesday, was, of course, outraged, but misguided when he suggested the attack was upon the photographer and against the Journal. There are many fine journalists in Rhode Island, many working outside the Journal and many facing similar, if not identical situations. As press observers have suggested, it is a growing trend nationally. The attack was not just aimed at the Journal, but at our free speech and a free press, and all of those things that set a democracy apart from an oligarchy.
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It also once again demonstrates the depth of problems within the Providence Police Department, its failure at times to understand basic rights of individuals and the very institutions that protect our democracy.
An unfettered press, complete with its foibles, is far better than one subject to intimidation and government control.
What the Providence Police have done was to intimidate a representative of the press into turning over her cameras and film — what amounts to her notes, her images of what she had covered, not necessarily what would appear in print. By seizing the film, the police sent a strong and frightening message to every individual, source or organization that whatever is said or photographed, whether it will appear in print or not, is subject to government or police review.
We also wrestle with the Journal’s decision to release a print of the incident to the police before its publication. It is a difficult dilemma, and has been at the center of debate within the industry for years. In the end, we would agree that release of the photograph at that point was probably in the better public good, providing the police with a vivid image of a suspected gunman, and potentially preventing any further violence.
A colleague passes on
Don Abood, sometimes gruff, witty, always creative and deeply committed to journalism, died last week, the victim of cancer that took him much too early.
Don had shifted from words to pictorial journalism for awhile, operating a news photo agency for five years, before returning to his first professional love – print journalism — here at the Providence Business News as a copy editor and then managing editor some years ago. Earlier he had worked for many years in a variety of capacities at the Providence Journal.
From this paper he went to the Barrington Times, where he was editor until he was diagnosed with cancer several months ago, a battle he waged with the same tenacity that he approached every news story, but one that he could not, in the end, win.
We are grateful for the time we worked with Don, beneficiaries of his professionalism and devotion, and are hopeful that he is now at peace.
